Pedal to the Metal! The Princess and the Pit Stop by Tom Angleberger

Where would you expect to find a princess?

In a palace? Waltzing with a prince? Sleeping on a pea?

Not this princess! She's handed her crown to her principal lady-in-waiting/pit crew chief to hold, and she's behind the wheel and out on the race course.

Once upon a time there was a princess who made a pit stop. While the birds and beasts changed her tires, her Fairy Godmother told her she was in last place!

She might as well give up!

Will she return to her tower for a good cry? Will she command an official Re-Start? Not this royal. She's nobody's Did Not Finish Princess.

She floors the accelerator and puts the pedal to the metal.

She cruises past the Kings' Men, passes Peter Rabbit, gives the air to the Three Bears, spins past Rumpelstiltskin... and ...

... she beats Jack and Jill down the hill, blows the doors off Mr. Big Bad Wolf, and leaves Little Jack Horner in the corner.

Even the Gingerbread Man concedes that maybe she can catch him.

This princess powers her way past the checkered flag, accepts her trophy and smiles through the obligatory power poses as the cameras flash. She even tapes a quick commercial. And then... it's on to the ball for some Happy Ever After, in Tom Angleberger's just published The Princess and the Pit Stop (Abrams Books, 2018). With a princess who leaves all of Fairy Tale Land in the dust, cruising by cameos of famed Nursery Rhyme characters, done up by the turbo-powered art of Caldecott winner Dan Santat, this comic-book-cum-fractured-fairy-tale is bound to take the lead at in the read-aloud winner's circle. Says School Library Journal, "A high octane storytime selection!"