New West Book Review

Princess, Meet Cowgirl: Two Books Offer Alternatives to Standard Princess Narrative

By Jenny Shank, 8-23-10

Do Princesses Wear Hiking Boots?
by Carmela LaVigna Coyle
Rising Moon, 32 pages, $15.95, ages 4-8

The Cowgirl Way: Hats Off to America’s Women of the West
by Holly George-Warren
Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, 128 pages, $18, ages 9-12

If there’s a little girl in your life, perhaps you’ve noticed: the world has become infested with princesses.  According to Newsweek, Disney created its Princess line in 2000, packaging old princesses Belle, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Snow White, Jasmine and Ariel together and marketing them “as a team,” and since then it’s grown into a four-billion-dollar industry, producing everything from plastic dolls to wedding gowns for grown-up women.  I don’t mind the dress-up aspects of the princess philosophy, but I have to say that the literature is execrable.

A Moment to Remember, Volume 11 in the Disney Princess Storybook Library, entered my house through a birthday party gift bag brought home by my four-year-old daughter.  It stars Sleeping Beauty, better known as Aurora when she’s awake.  No specific author is credited; the story must have oozed forth from the collective brain at Disney Princess headquarters.  The plot: Aurora is frustrated because her handlers force her to plan too many fancy balls.  (I find Cinderella more relatable—being forced to scrub too many toilets, now that’s a problem I wrangle with daily.)

“[Aurora] loved Prince Phillip,” the Disney collective writes, “but life in the palace was so very different.  Tonight there would be yet another royal ball, and her guardian fairies were bickering over what she should wear.” Such problems.  Aurora slips away from the hectic party planning out to the forest grove where birds and flowers orbit her in sparkly magical swirls.  This gives Aurora the inspiration to hold the latest ball outside, and that somehow makes everything better.  My daughter has ordered me to read this book dozens of times—she always finds it when I hide it.  Any gift sack that includes one of these books should also contain an air-sickness bag.

Luckily, I found a book that mothers and daughters can agree on, Do Princesses Wear Hiking Boots? (Rising Moon, 32 pages, $15.95, ages 4-8) by Colorado author Carmela LaVigna Coyle, with charming illustrations by Mike Gordon and Carl Gordon.  Cole writes that she was inspired to write this book after her daughter asked her the title question.  The text consists of a mother’s simple rhymed answers to her daughter’s questions about princesses, such as, “When princesses laugh, do they sometimes snort?  They have manners of every sort.”

The princess in Do Princesses Wear Hiking Boots? gets out a lot more than Aurora does, and actually seems to enjoy herself rather than be stressed out by party planning and costume changing.  Princesses hike, climb trees, ride bicycles, splash in puddles and get muddy.  They even wear pants.  Cole continued the successful series with Do Princesses Really Kiss Frogs? and Do Princesses Scrape Their Knees? and other titles.  The latest book in the series, Do Princesses Have Best Friends Forever?, will be out this December.

I’m wondering if I might be able to wean my daughter off of princesses and turn her on to cowgirls, who have way better skills, in my opinion, and wear clothes that are as least as fancy and yet more functional.  A new book, Holly George-Warren‘s The Cowgirl Way: Hats Off to America’s Women of the West (Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, 128 pages, $18, ages 9-12) celebrates the cowgirl in a lively history that encompasses outlaw cowgirls such as Calamity Jane and Pearl Hart, Wild West show stars such as Annie Oakley, rodeo champs including Prairie Rose Henderson, and Dale Evans and other Hollywood cowgirls.

There are tons of photos in this book and they are awesome, with trick riders standing on galloping horses, their arms thrown high, beautiful pioneer women showing off their chaps, women riding bucking broncos, Prairie Rose Henderson grinning next to her horse who wears heart-bedecked tack.  These cowgirls are happy—their smiles are more convincing than the pained, I-feel-a-migraine-coming-on rictus Aurora wears on the cover of A Moment to Remember.  And their headgear is much more practical in the sunny West—a cowboy hat provides more shade than a tiara.

My friend who was a competitive ski racer told me about how conflicted she feels about all the girly things her daughter is into.  “When we were growing up, you couldn’t kick butt and be girly,” she said.  “But maybe now you can.  Look at Lindsey Vonn.”

Maybe it is possible to kick butt and look princessy while doing it.  At the Boulder County Fair earlier this month, the Boulder County Queen and her Lady-In-Waiting helped my daughter handle rabbits and construct a sparkly hobbyhorse.  The rhinestones on these teenage girls’ belt buckles and their Western shirts were dazzling.  And they each wore a cowboy hat/tiara combo that I thought perfectly blended stylish and practical considerations.  Princess and cowgirl: shake hands.

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