By Larissa Page
Content warning (for young minds): Alcohol use
The Prince and the Dressmaker is a middle-grade graphic novel I recently picked up to buddy read with my eight-year-old. She read it before I did and was very excited when I picked it up as well.
It follows a prince who hires a personal seamstress to make him custom dresses so he can stop wearing his mother’s in secret. With her help, he attends events and makes friends and connections as Lady Crystallia. They become close friends and the seamstress makes her own connections for her fashion genius. When fear of being discovered causes the Prince to take actions that hurt the seamstress, she’s sent back to working for someone else instead of making her mark on the fashion world. When the Prince is found out anyway, he risks being disowned by his parents and the larger world in general. For fear of ruining it, I will not include the ending except to say it is wholesome, heartwarming, and completely lovely.
This graphic novel creates an incredible doorway into talking to your kids about what it means to be true to themselves and the importance of loving others as they are, even for their differences. The prince describes very well “why” he sometimes dresses in dresses and sometimes in his princely clothing (sometimes as Lady Crystallia and sometimes as Prince Sebastian). It is important to place these types of books into the hands of youth (and adults!) to build empathy towards people. I feel this one does that particularly well. I also really appreciated the underlying romance because even though Prince Sebastian sometimes felt more comfortable dressing as Lady Crystallia, it didn’t assume that he was also attracted to men. Perhaps he was, but by allowing romance to happen between him and the seamstress, it shows us (and our children) that clothing, gender identity, and sexual orientation are all different aspects of someone’s personality.