The Princess Who Danced With Cranes

Christine Linge is a past director of the Toronto & District Parent
Co-operative Preschool Corporation, a freelance writer, and a bookseller
specializing in children’s literature.

Princess Vivian thoroughly enjoys the marsh near her father’s castle
where she picks cranberries, harvests wild potatoes, leaps, spins, and
hops with the cranes who live there. One day she is interrupted by the
arrival of a stranger who introduces the princess and her family to a
wonderful new croquetlike game called Gullywhupper. So fascinating and
exhilarating is this game that soon the whole kingdom is
Gullywhupper-mad. Then the king and his subjects dam up the river to
convert the marsh into Gullywhupper playing-fields.

The princess, remembering her friends the cranes, returns to the marsh
and discovers that only two remain because “without water, nothing can
live.” The princess convinces the others to undam the river so that
the natural environment can reassert itself. Years later, she recalls
the wonders of the marsh to her own daughter, hoping that she too will
some day “dance with the cranes.”

LeBox draws on personal experience as a hiker/birder in B.C. marshes to
bring to life this beautiful ecological tale set in olden times. Her
smooth prose, with hints of poetry and humor, delivers a clear
ecological message without being preachy. Using the Gullywhupper craze
as a metaphor for human expansion shows the impact of human lifestyles
on other creatures.

Rich in tone and detail, Charko’s exquisite paintings enhance the
tale in every way. Highly recommended.