I Want My Dad!

Tony Ross's I Want My Dad is a Little Princess picture book for 5 year olds about a girl who's decided her dad is the most useless dad in the palace.

What happens

The Little Princess feels very proud of her dad, the King. He's taller than all the other dads. Well, until they stand up.

Then she starts noticing. The Cook bakes his son wonderful cakes, and even the dog won't eat the King's burnt black ones. The General teaches his son to ride, but animals make the King sneeze (even her mouse). The Admiral teaches his daughter to swim. The King needs water wings in the bath!

So when the Maid offers to teach her all of it herself, the Little Princess jumps at the chance.

It doesn't go well. She falls off her pony and bumps her head. Her cake is so hard it hurts her teeth. She swallows lots of horrible pool water, and then she gets them both lost in the woods and they miss their tea.

By the end of the day she's cold, wet, sore and starving. Worst of all, she's decided she can't do anything properly.

Which is exactly when her dad wanders past with the dog.

The jokes work beautifully for this age. Each clever grown-up is followed by the King getting it wrong (he gets lost going to bed!). Little ones love being in on a joke like that, and they'll be giggling at the King long before the Princess's own disasters start.

Then it turns round, very gently. What the King says to his daughter is really the whole point of the book, and it's a lovely thing for a small child to hear. Grown-ups reading it aloud may find it goes straight to the heart too.

If your little one has ever compared your family with someone else's (and whose hasn't?), this is a sweet way to talk about it. It's short enough for bedtime and funny enough to ask for again.

What to read next

There's the same bossy, lovable heroine and the same busy palace in another Little Princess story, where she has her heart set on a pet rabbit and ends up with a stick insect and a goldfish first. If that sounds like your house, try I Want a Bunny!