The Little Wooden Robot and the Log Princess

 
 
The Little Wooden Robot and the Log Princess

by Tom Gauld

Neal Porter Books

2021
 

 

There was a time when I only saw either of their comics occasionally, and I couldn't distinguish between Grant Snider and Tom Gauld, especially since they both often write about books. But after reading a couple of each of their books last year, I've realized I like Gauld much better. He's witty, and his art is a bit more precise and stylized. Snider is more sentimental, and at times I find him saccharine or maudlin.

 
So I was excited to see Gauld's new children's book, The Little Wooden Robot and the Log Princess.
 

The King and Queen want children but are infertile. On the same night, they both sneak off to find help. One goes to the Inventor, who builds them a little Wooden Robot, and one goes to the Witch who enchants a log to become a little Log Princess. She turns back into a log when she sleeps, and so can't wake up on her own. The two children are siblings and best friends, and the Wooden Robot wakes up his sister every morning.

One morning, the Log Princess accidentally gets mixed up with some other logs and shipped off to be sold in the Frozen North. The Wooden Robot follows along and finds her, but decides not to wake her up yet so she won't be scared. He starts carrying her back home in a wagon, but eventually gets tired out. He wakes her up and explains, then shuts down. Now the Log Princess carries her brother partway home in a wagon, but eventually she gets tired too and falls asleep.

 
Disaster? No, because they're pretty close to their home, and also this is a fairy tale, so some friendly forest animals find them and bring them to the Witch. The Witch restores them, and they are happily reunited with their worried parents.

 
It's a cute story, and I like that Gauld wove a whole story around the idea of 'sleeping like a log' (a phrase he has the good sense to never include anywhere in the book!)

 
The standout art pieces are the detailed interiors of the Inventor's and Witch's houses, the landscape views of the boat trip north and the two kids asleep in the forest, and a couple of montage sequences. Both the Robot and the Princess get a page during their respective travels where they 'have too many adventures to recount here,' and we get a page of panels showing snapshots of their little side adventures, like getting kidnapped by Mischievous Pixies or meeting The Queen of the Mushrooms. These pages are inventive, and let Gauld hint at a typical fairy tale structure without losing momentum on his main narrative.