New Picture Book about a “Princess and Pirate” Expands Views of Gender

When I first received a new book about a girl who likes to pretend she is both a princess and a pirate, I was very excited. A book with a broad view of how girls imagine and play? Might this be a book that would have spoken to me, growing up as a tomboyish girl?

In many ways, I would have loved Eleanor Wyatt Princess and Pirate, by Rachael MacFarlane (Macmillan). Eleanor, a White, red-headed girl (like me!), tells us “Some days I’m a princess. Some days I’m a pirate,” and proceeds to show us, on opposite pages, how she plays in various ways, all with the support of her mom and dad. “I can sword fight the scariest bad guys in town,/then I twirl to the ball in my finest ball gown.” Illustrator (and MacFarlane’s husband) Spencer Laudiero is to be commended for peopling Eleanor’s world with a racially diverse mix of friends, and for additional inclusive touches like depicting a boy (as well as another girl) in her ballet class. On another page, we see Eleanor variously wearing a dapper suit and bow tie, a pink ball gown, a cowboy outfit and mustache, a cheerleader skirt, skateboarding gear, and more. One spread shows Eleanor and her friends all dressing up in various costumes, including two friends who look like they might have been assigned male at birth but are wearing tutus, a female-looking firefighter, and a knight in a wheelchair, charging boldly forward with a sword. It’s a lovely vision.

My one hesitation was in the spread that contrasts Eleanor saying “I’m awaiting my prince while trapped in a tower” with “Then I’m saving the world with my superpower.” The first illustration shows Princess Eleanor in a tree house with a sign on it saying “Prince wanted.” Gah. So much for the book appealing to my then-budding lesbian self—or might it? Look more closely, and readers will see that one of the three knights standing at the base of the tree ready to rescue Eleanor from the dragon has long hair—most people would see her as a girl, I think. Personally, I would have broadened the language to say “I’m awaiting a rescue while trapped in a tower,” thus leaving the gender of the rescuer open to interpretation—but perhaps Eleanor amends her sign after she and the long-haired knight fall in love. Or maybe the long-haired knight really identifies as male and goes by “Prince.” Readers can still exercise some flexibility if they wish. (See some of the interior spreads mentioned above at the publisher’s site.)

MacFarlane also voices animated characters for Disney’s Sofia the First and other shows (including her brother Seth MacFarlane’s American Dad), while Laudiero is an animation director for Comedy Central, Dreamworks, and Fox. They’ve brought an animated peppiness to this tale that’s worth seeking out when it launches on November 6 (though you can pre-order it now).

For another recent book about a princess breaking gender stereotypes, check out What Does a Princess Really Look Like, by Mark Loewen (about which more here). For more children’s books that take an expansive view of gender generally (but without princesses), try these three books. If princesses and princes are your groove, though, here are a number of LGBTQ-inclusive fairy tales.