Princess Furball: A Brave Princess Escapes and Chooses Her Own Path for Children

by Charlotte S. Huck, Anita Lobel (Illustrator)

Once upon a time a cruel King decided to betroth his motherless daughter to an Ogre in exchange for fifty wagons filled with silver. When the Princess learns what her father has done, she is horrified. But she is as clever as she is beautiful. Quickly, the Princess devises a plan to escape and, relying on her own spunk and good sense, ultimately marries the man she chooses for herself.

Genres: Picture Books, Childrens, Fairy Tales, Fantasy, Cinderella, Fiction, Folklore

40 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

Reviews

[Mir · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this adaptation of the Princess Donkeyskin, the horrific threat of incest -- forced marriage to her father -- is replaced by betrothal to a wealthy ogre (in the illustrations merely an ugly older man). I can understand why Huck was reluctant to address this topic with young readers, but without it the tale feels off kilter.

The threatening sense of horror and unease remains, perhaps more intense for being ungrounded in a specific danger. Reading it feels like visiting a home and knowing that something is wrong between the family members, but not having any evidence to point to.

The illustrations, although good, do not help resolve questions left by the text. Is there magic? The text doesn't mention any and the sun, moon, and star dresses are shown being manufactured by normal men, on looms. But then how could they all fit in a nutshell? What is so special about the tiny golden keepsakes left by the princess' mother? Was the mother an enchantress? Is the princess using magic? When the princess hides in her coat of a thousand furs the men who discover her don't seem to recognize her as human, although her face looks totally normal in the pictures. If they don't think she is human why do they bother to drag her to the castle in chains, only to do nothing with her but send her to work in the kitchen. Is she being enslaved? She says she can't leave but seems able to wander around freely. Why does she put her golden objects in the prince's soup? When she gets his attention she looks as if she is recoiling in fear.

That near-last panel, where the prince seizes her hand as she cringes away in dismay, is disturbing -- although not as disturbing as the scenes where the hunters slaughter a thousand animals. Do we really need to see the dogs ripping at their bellies and the limp corpses? And if we are meant to be repulsed by that why is there no hint of blame towards the princess, who is after all the one who stupidly asked for such a coat?

I would've just married the ogre. At least he was rich.

[Brigette · Rating 2 out of 5]

The cover of Princess Furball has a pretty font that one would expect from a Princess story, but the framed illustration is not as stereotypical. It shows a girl who looks like a beggar in a big, puffy coat being forced to clean while appearing very scared of the other people in the kitchen—one of whom is wielding a broom. The end papers are white, but there are illustrations before the first opening that are clearly part of the story that are not to be ignored. They are of a funeral, then of a young girl hugging an older woman, then the same little girl playing with children who seem to be far less fortunate than she is, based on their clothing. These illustrations are important to the story because they tell of the young princess and the death of her mother as well as her relationship with her nurse and with other children. I wonder why these illustrations were not included in the story with the text that explains what they depict. Part of me suspects that it would be easier for a person who didn’t want to talk about the Princess’s mother dying could more easily breeze by the illustrations and quickly read through the text, not allowing the child to make comments or ask questions about death. I also suspect that the amount of words per page would have seemed scant had these illustrations been included after the title page. I don’t know the real reason why they are before the title page and with the peritext, but I am glad that they are in the book for us to see. The illustrations throughout the book are all framed and the typeface is all traditional. The writer and illustrator of this book stuck with classic styles that a person would expect from a princess story. In the peritext I read that the author was trying to keep the story as true to the original as possible, and I think that the illustrations and typeface definitely add to this effect.

[A. L. · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of my favorite fairytales, though not really this version. This version is highly sanitized and watered down, and worst of all, the illustrations look rather comic book like, when I want them stunning. I really want this to be a story illustrated by Kinuko Craft.

I mostly read this one to my daughter so that when we read “Moss Gown” next, and “Cap O’Rushes” she can compare and contrast the three variations.

[Theodora Goss · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have a battered old copy of this book, and I totally love it. It's an appropriate, and very good, retelling of the Catskin story for children. I even use it to teach fairy tales to undergraduates! A very sweet book . . .

[Leslie Bardo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Princess Furball is a fictitious, Victorian-era book that is a variant of the classic Cinderella story. It is about a young girl who lives in a faraway land with her father, the King. Upon hearing the news of an arranged married to an ogre, she decides to flee her father's kingdom. Before leaving, she requests "wedding gifts" from the King which are a gold ring, a gold spinning wheel, three dresses, and a coat made out of 1000 animals. As she walks through the forests, she disguises herself with the fur coat and thus gets the nickname “Furball”. She finally stumbles across a castle that is willing to put her to work as a cook in the kitchen. Through rumors, she hears of this ball that the king has put on. Being a former princess, she is intrigued and decides to attend the ball in one of the dresses her father had given her. As fate would have it, the king falls in love with her, but she must run away before the night ends to hide her identity. She returns back to the kitchen as Furball, sight unseen. The king decides to throw a second ball in hopes of finding the young woman he fell in love with at the previous ball. Hearing the news, the princess decides to attend the second ball, in her beautiful garb. She attends a second time, but escapes yet again without spoiling her identity as the Furball cook. Finally, a third ball is hosted, the princess attends again, but this time, the king places a gold ring on her in order to find her again. He chases after her and eventually finds out that the princess was hiding as the Furball cook the whole time. He asks her to marry him, regardless of her job as the cook, and they lived happily ever after. I thought this story was really interesting to compare to the classic Cinderella story. We all know the Cinderella story by heart (or at least I do!) and it is great to see this story in a new light. I loved all the illustrations and storyline. It was really a great read and I would definitely use this as a classroom read-aloud. This book would be perfect for 2nd through 4th grade. The only reason I gave this book 4 out of 5 stars was because I felt like I had just heard this story in this traditional, Victorian-era setting so many times before. It had all the details of a classic fable: a princess with a hidden identity, a man falls in love with her, they overcome their struggles, and live happily ever after. I would have enjoyed a story that had a little more spunk and personality than a traditional fairytale. Other than that, it was a great read! This is all why I am giving this book a 4 out of 5 stars!

[Stephanie George · Rating 4 out of 5]

When a beautiful princess's father arranges for her to marry a gruesome ogre, she takes action to prevent the marriage. She asks her father for four ridiculous engagement gifts before she gets married: a dress as golden as the sun, a dress as silver as the moon, a dress that shines like the starts, and a coat made of the fur of 1000 animals. The princess hoped that her father would never be able to find these gifts; but he was able to deliver all the gifts, just as the princess asked. Her father presented her with the four engagement gifts and announced that she was going to marry the ogre in the morning. That evening, the princess made preparations to run away. She packed her three dresses and some special spices into walnut shells and wrapped herself in her fur coat before taking off into the winter night. The princess found a tree to rest in. When she woke up she was being tied up by a young king an his men. They thought she was some sort of animal! When she convinces them that she is a woman and not an animal the men laugh at her and name her furball. They take her back to the king's castle to become his cinder maid. Will the princess be able to come up with a clever plan to let the young king know who she really is?
This is a clever take on the Cinderella story. What I find interesting is that it is not apparent that this is a retelling of the Cinderella story at first. The beginning of the book seems like a completely different story. I think it would be useful for compare and contrast and a lesson on folktales. If an adult is reading this story, I believe it may be used for any age. The art in the story uses earthy, natural tones for the most part. The illustrations look as if they came from an old book of fairy tales. The cover shows a pivotal scene from the book where the princess cooks soup for the king. This is the scene where she gives hints to the kind about who she really is. The language and vocabulary is not at a difficult level; but the story is long. I would suggest this book for no younger that second grade if the children are reading independently.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

Retelling of a Cinderella variant. When the princess’s father is going to force her to marry an ogre, she flees and finds refuge as a servant at another castle. With the help of three spectacular dresses, three precious gifts from her mother, and some special spices, her looks, wit (supposedly), and cooking ability garner the attention of the king.

The princess in this story is educated and not just pretty, and although she does servants’ work, it is essentially a way to earn her keep rather than an arbitrary punishment. This Cinderella also devises her own plans and isn’t wholly dependent on a fairy godmother or birds or other magic animals, but I found myself slightly confused by her soup plot. I didn’t fully understand why she was using her mother’s golden treasures to catch the king’s attention but then continued to frantically hide her identity when she made the soup. The story suggests that, given more time, she intended to change from her starry dress, remove the wring, and more thoroughly disguise herself before returning to the castle to make the soup. Presumably, though, the king would not have asked her to marry him if he hadn’t noticed the ring and then seen her in her full princess radiance with the dress and her hair. If the third interview had gone as the first two had, she would have remained silent about the spinning wheel and been sent off. If that were the case, I am not sure I understood what Furball intended to happen by placing her treasures in the king’s soup.

[Lacie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've had a copy of this book since I was a kid and both my kids have enjoyed it now as well. It's partly nostalgia, partly a love of Cinderella stories, and partly the illustrations. I like the bits of humor mixed in with the tragedy of her background like so many of the Cinderella tales. Surprised I had never marked it as read in here over the years, so while my 5 year old is going through a phase where we read it almost every night, it is time to add it to the read list.

[Morgan Lang · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great story! It's one of my childhood favorites!

[Ami · Rating 2 out of 5]

A variant of the Cinderella story with some confusing aspects - a hint of magic, but is it? Why put the items in the soup then pretend you didn’t?

[Jasmine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I grabbed this book thinking it was going to be some fairy tale about a cat and was surprised to find out it was actually a rendition of the classic fairy tale Cinderella. The princess in the story grows up without a mother and with a father who pays her no attention at all but luckily her old nurse loved her and raised her as her own and taught her to be strong and witty as well as beautiful. When the princess' father arranges a marriage with an ugly old man she decides to come up with four demands that must be met before she weds. When the king meets her demands quicker than she thought he would she decides to run away. She ends up being taken in by another king and is forced to do the dirty work in the kitchen. As the story progresses, the princess is able to use her wit to find a way to make the king fall in love with her secretly and when he is able to find out who she is they wed. (By the way, one of her demands of her father was to have a coat made of the fur of a thousand different animals and when the other king finds her she is wearing it and earns the name of Furball.) The artwork reminded me of the type of art you would find during the renaissance. They had bright colors, smooth lines, and great texture. Although the story was far from the origina story, I was intrigued the whole time to figure out how it ends.

[Anthonia · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read. A wonderful tale of a clever princess. Her father the king arranges a marriage for her to an ogre for silver. Clever as she is beautiful she asks her father for bridal gifts and a fur coat of all the animals in his kingdom. Her father accomplishes this and his daughter decides to run away only to be found by a king and his hunting party. She then uses her cleverness in order get the happy ending.

[Art · Rating 4 out of 5]

Made me think of "The Tale of Despereaux."
Very bright young lady.

[Abigail · Rating 4 out of 5]

Author Charlotte Huck and illustrator Anita Lobel retell the English fairy-tale of Princess Furball—a variant of the Cinderella tale type—in this gorgeous picture book. Orphaned at a young age, our princess heroine is raised by her nurse, and gains many important skills through her education, both practical and intellectual. When her father betroths her to an ogre, she comes up with a variety of impossible tasks—demanding dresses as golden as the sun, as silvery as the moon and as glittering as the stars, as well as a fur coat made from a thousand different furs—to delay this horrific event. When these demands are met, she runs away, eventually ending up a lowly kitchen maid in another king's palace. Here, by attending three balls in her gorgeous dresses, and by cooking delicious soups in which she leaves golden items, Princess Furball enchants and intrigues the king, who eventually seeks her out...

As Huck notes in her brief introductory note, the story in Princess Furball is quite similar to the English story of Catskin, as well as the Brothers Grimm tale, Many Furs. I am not familiar with any individual retelling of the former, although it can be found in collections, such as Joseph Jacobs' 1893 More English Fairy Tales . As for the latter, it can be found in collections of Grimm tales, as well as in Jacquelyn Ilya Sage's picture book, Many Furs . Unlike the Grimm tale, here there is no theme of incest (thankfully), but rather an unwanted bridegroom, and a clever princess who finds a way to evade a terrible fate. I enjoyed this retelling quite a bit, and also enjoyed the accompanying artwork, done in watercolor and gouache, from Anita Lobel. This pair would go on to collaborate on another folkloric picture book, Toads and Diamonds , which I also great enjoyed. Recommended to young folk and fairy-tale lovers, or to readers looking for less famous variants of the Cinderella story.

[Sara Stelmach · Rating 5 out of 5]

The traditional story “Princess Furball” by Charlotte Huck is an enjoyable tale to read. It is about a King, whose Queen has died, selling his daughter to an Ogre for fifty wagons with silver. The princess finds out and is terrified. But she takes things into her own hands and makes a plan. She plans to leave the kingdom, but before she leaves she request wedding gifts from her father. She receives luxurious gifts like a gold ring, three dresses, gold spinning wheel and a coat made out of many furs. As she leaves the kingdom she covers herself in the fur coat and gets the nickname furball. She finds a castle to work as a cook in. After working she hears rumors of a King’s ball. So, she wears one of the dresses her father have given her and flirts with the King. She does this 3 times in a row with each dress, but the third time he find out her true identity as a cook. But he decides to marry her anyway. The cover of this book looks like a normal fairytale with its framing except it has a girl during chores inside the frame. Further, the illustrations are very important to the story. If you were only to read the text you would not know about the funeral for the Princess’s mom. It is shown without text, maybe to be skipped over for certain children. I really enjoyed this story. It had a lot of spunk and honestly was not a traditional story. I think this can be read aloud to children 5 years old and up.

[Narules · Rating 2 out of 5]

Overall a good book and highly recommend the lovely artwork.

There is an inside note in the book about different versions of Cinderella and incest (would need explanation for young readers or can be omitted while reading to them).

I didn’t read Grimm’s Allerleirauh as a child but watched Jim Henson’s The Storyteller: Sapsorrow where she is to marry her father. Huck replaces this mention of incest with marrying an ogre. Having now read Allerleirauh, the mention that the jewelry was from her bridegroom (not father) was a serious omission that should have been included in this retelling for context. Also the allusions to Cinderella are missing since Grimm separates that tale from Allerleirauh (All Fur).

Trigger: there is mention of killing 1000 animals for their fur.

[Vanessa Richards · Rating 3 out of 5]

Princess Furball was about a princess whose dad wanted her to get married to someone she did not know so she ran away from home and got brought to another kingdom and ended up marrying the king from that kingdom. This book kind of reminded me of Cinderella in the way that she pretended to be a maid or whatever and then also a beautiful girl and finally the king caught on which was good because she probably would have been in trouble. This book seems very old-fashioned to me but I also thought that it was a good read and I can see it being in my classroom library.
Author: Charlotte S. Huck
Illustrator: Anita Lobel
Publisher: Greenwillow Books March 29, 1994

[Marilyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love fairy tales and retellings of fairy tales, but this one is disturbing. The oldest variants are based on the idea that the king wants to marry his daughter. Her impossible requests are to delay this. Sometimes there's magic; sometimes not so much. This is not a princess I admire -- or the prince, for that matter. But the underlying premise just makes me uneasy. I see that Charlotte Huck has softened the tale to make it more acceptable for children, but I'm still not a fan.

[Sarah Siath · Rating 4 out of 5]

For many years, I have asked my teacher friends “do you know about the secret princess book…where she hides magical dresses in nut shells?” And despite having well read teacher friends, no one knew what the hell I was talking about. I finally googled it. And found the origin story (!) and what I believed to be my beloved fairy tale. It lived up to my memory and underscored it’s just as important to be clever (as it is to be pretty) in princess fairy tales ❤️

[Libby Forgues]

Illustrator: Anita Lobel

This book was overall a good book other than that it touches on some dark topics. For example, one is where the princess asks her father for a coat made of hundreds of animal fur. This results in the king killing these animals for their fur. This would be a good book for a read-aloud if you were doing a Cinderella unit but would need some further discussion about the harsh topics of the book.


ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780688131074

[Kayla · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like this adaptation of Cinderella. It had many features, almost to where you think it may not be an adaptation of Cinderella. The length or the story thought was very long and I don’t think a lower grade level class could sit through the whole book. However, I could read this aloud to an upper grade level and see if any of the students catch on to what the story is.

[Catherine Petrini · Rating 5 out of 5]

This picture book retells a variation on the Cinderella tale, in which the beautiful young girl's father wants to marry her to an ogre, so she outsmarts him and runs away, setting off a string of adventures for the smart, strong-willed protagonist. Illustrated with charming, rustic paintings by Anita Lobel.

[Diane · Rating 4 out of 5]

A variation of the Cinderella story in which the father wants to marry her off to “an ogre” in exchange for money. Furball runs away and is found by hunters in a neighboring kingdom. She is taken to the palace to work as a servant of the servants. No fairy godmother, Furball relies on her own ingenuity and the dresses her father had given her as bridal gifts to capture the heart of the king.

[Hailey Licata · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was interesting to say the least. I had never even heard of this before, so I had no idea what to expect. It definitely is a bit more challenging then some of the other reads in this list. This book promotes independence and freedom of choice-- which is good to make sure students grasp this and learn they have control too.

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Though I can't get excited about a princess whose name is Furball, this story would've been right up my alley as a kid. I loved different versions of famous fairytales & this version of Cinderella is so different from the original. And if the other reviews calling this a watered down version are anything to go off of, I need to check out the not for kids original.

[Jeanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just read and re-read this to some grandchildren. It’s a wonderfully inventive and fun fairy tale read-aloud.

[Diana · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Cinderella variant, this one is unique, but shares many of the traditional traits. I thought the illustrations were pleasant, but what sold me was the lyrical quality of the writing. Lovely.

[Molly Cluff (Library!) · Rating 5 out of 5]

An old family favorite. Definitely a 1-on-1 reading kind of book. I love the detail in the princess' hair and coat and dresses. This sent me right back to childhood to read it again!

[Jordan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read for my children's lit class

[Olivia Lyndaker · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this all the time as I kid, and I still love the story. Partly because I have hair that's basically just shorter and a bit more tamed than Furball. : D