Skip to main content
I ain't your princess

Don’t Call Me Princess
by Kate Evans
(New Internationalist, £9.99)

DON’T Call Me Princess is a funny, gutsy and hugely relatable retelling of all the gruesome fairy tales we’ve cherished for so long.

[[{"fid":"9633","view_mode":"inlineright","fields":{"format":"inlineright","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false},"link_text":null,"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"format":"inlineright","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false}},"attributes":{"class":"media-element file-inlineright","data-delta":"1"}}]]But this time the princes are prickly, slobbering buffoons in tights, chasing after incredulous princesses who choose not to trade their fins for feet.

Author and cartoonist Kate Evans bases the story’s narrator on her own daughter, now at the “good critical age” of seven.

She reads to us from her book of fairy tales, scoffing along to every “happily ever after” before thinking up her own, infinitely more satisfying narratives.

In her imagination, the princess finds the pea, dumps the dwarves and abseils down the scary tower in a dress that accentuates her biceps. It’s a book that will delight young girls everywhere, but, as Evans points out, it probably won’t make for a calming bedtime read.

“We’re currently part of the #MeToo generation,” Evans has said.

“I’d like to raise the #DoesntHappenToUsAnyMore generation” – and this is certainly a propitious start.

For anyone fed up with frogs and sunsets, Don’t Call Me Princess will be a household favourite.

Morning Star Conference - Race, Sex & Class
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
Culture / 11 November 2020
11 November 2020
Ruby Fischer hails a photobook that celebrates the freedom, delight and mischief of childhood among Travellers
ONLINE WATCH / 13 April 2020
13 April 2020
Timely celebration of women's global contribution to the art and craft of of film-making
(Left to right) Power figure (nkisi), Kongo peoples (Loango,
Picture This / 12 February 2020
12 February 2020
Revelatory exploration of funerary practice in sub-Saharan Africa
Left to right- The empty window+Franziska Goes to Heaven+Ama
Exhibition / 13 November 2019
13 November 2019
RUBY FISCHER sees a potent exhibition of the enigmatic and troubling paintings produced by Charlotte Salomon before she was consigned to a nazi death camp
Similar stories
Tower of Babel, 1982
Culture / 10 April 2025
10 April 2025
This is poetry in paint, spectacular but never spectacle for its own sake, writes JAN WOOLF
RESILIENCE: (Right) Stand Up To Racism protest on October 26
Features / 31 December 2024
31 December 2024
The Morning Star sorts the good eggs from the rotten scoundrels of the year
ARROGANCE AND IGNORANCE: Group of six European men sitting,
Book Review / 24 September 2024
24 September 2024
FRANCOISE VERGES introduces a powerful new book that explores the damage done by colonial theft
(L) Chilean academic and photographer Luis Bustamante; (R) C
Exhibition Review / 11 July 2024
11 July 2024
Co-curator TOM WHITE introduces a father-and-son exhibition of photography documenting the experience and political engagement of Chilean exiles