The Restless Girls
A dazzling, feminist fairytale from the author of The Miniaturist
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- £6.99
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- £6.99
Publisher Description
This breathtaking work of short illustrated fiction is best viewed on a colour device
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'A magical modern retelling of an old fairytale ... Exquisite' - Jacqueline Wilson
'These twelve fierce heroines will be a pleasure to return to again and again' - Madeline Miller
'A complete revelation' - Thandie Newton
'Wild, wise, generous, ferocious' - Katherine Rundell
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A dazzling, feminist fairytale from the bestselling author of The Miniaturist and The House of Fortune.
For her twelve daughters, Queen Laurelia's death in a motor car accident is a disaster beyond losing a mother. Their father, King Alberto, cannot bear the idea of the princesses ever being in danger and decides his daughters must be kept safe at all costs. Those costs include their lessons, their possessions and, most importantly, their freedom.
But the eldest, Princess Frida, will not bend to his will without a fight and she still has one possession her father can't take: the power of her imagination. And so, with little but wits and ingenuity to rely on, Frida and her sisters begin their fight to be allowed to live.
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An essential gift, this inspirational story about family, sisterhood, imagination and bravery is a modern classic to be handed down from mother to daughter for generations.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Burton's debut, a retelling of "The Twelve Dancing Princesses," the sisters carry on after the death of their mother, "a woman of many words and driver of a racing car." Blaming his wife's death on her curiosity and sense of adventure, King Alberto secures his daughters in a windowless room with only a portrait of their mother, "as if to remind the girls what might happen if they ever tried to go faster than was appropriate." But a door behind it leads to a joyous celebration where the siblings dance until dawn. Discovering that his daughters' slippers are ruined each night, as if from dancing, the King demands their secret be revealed. Burton offers a richly imagined feminist fairy tale, laden with allusions to contemporary concerns about autonomy, gender roles, and power dynamics, that is extended in Barrett's lush scenes of the clever sisters and their revels. Ages 8 12.
