The King’s Birthday Suit
Reviewed By Janet Mawdesley August 3, 2021
Author Peter Bentley. Illustrations Claire Powell.
Distributor: Bloomsbury Children's Books
ISBN: 9781408860144
Publisher: Bloomsbury Children's Books
Release Date: June 2021
Website: https://www.bloomsbury.com
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In a fabulously funny retelling of the Hans Christian Anderson fable The Emperors New Clothes, the team of Peter Bentley and Claire Powell bring this much loved story into the modern arena in The King’s Birthday Suit.
Written in rhyming text, the story takes a look at vanity and the power of encouraging people to believe anything you want, well sometimes. The King, Albert-Horatio-Otto the third has a very important birthday coming up and in spite of having so very many clothes, he decides he simply must have a new outfit to grace the occasion.
As it was so important, mainly because visiting royalty would be there, he had to dress to impress, so the fashion designers came to the palace but nothing they could offer pleased the King. That is, until two villains, of the most interesting kind, said they would weave a cloth of the finest material and make a suit that would be the best suit ever. Well, how could the very vain King resist!
Bentley and Powell ham up this cautionary tale with the style and flair for which they are known. The bold, bright cartoon style characters are perfect to captivate the younger reader, with much happening on the pages as the antics of preparing the new suit unfold. Their clever use of double entendre adds another level adults will appreciate.
Lovely rhyming language offers hours of reading fun, as the King looks forward to his lovely new suit but his subjects really do not know what to think about what is happening, because something seems to be decidedly odd! But what could it possibly be?