{"id":2161,"date":"2010-03-30T21:10:42","date_gmt":"2010-03-31T02:10:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/?p=2161"},"modified":"2010-03-30T21:10:42","modified_gmt":"2010-03-31T02:10:42","slug":"the-twelve-dancing-princesses-princes-knights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/2010\/20100330-2161.htm","title":{"rendered":"The Twelve Dancing Princesses Princes Knights"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.readingmylibrary.com\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"images\/reading-my-library.gif\" alt=\"Reading My Library\" border=\"0\" height=\"150\" width=\"150\" class=\"alignleft\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Twelve_Dancing_Princesses\" target=\"_blank\">The Twelve Dancing Princesses<\/a> was not a fairy tale that figured heavily into my childhood.  Mostly I remember either the fairy tales found in our red-covered copy of Andersen&#8217;s Fairy Tales or the Disneyfied or otherwise pop-culturified tales found in videos and Golden books.<\/p>\n<p>My first real exposure to the story occurred this last February, when I read Jessica Day George&#8217;s <i>Princess of the Midnight Ball<\/i>.  I loved the story. I loved how George told the story.  I still haven&#8217;t read Grimm&#8217;s version&#8211;so I have no idea how it compares.<\/p>\n<p>I haven&#8217;t been actively seeking out Twelve Dancing Princesses stories&#8211;but I managed to stumble across one this last week in my run through the picture book section of my local library. <\/p>\n<p>And, boy, is this one a STORY!<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.carlemuseum.org\/images\/uploads\/EricCarleMuseum\/shop\/8237_MD.jpg\" title=\"Brothers of the Knight\" class=\"alignright\" width=\"285\" height=\"372\" \/>Debbie Allen&#8217;s <i>Brothers of the Knight<\/i> is an imaginative retelling of The Twelve Dancing Princesses&#8211;except that instead of twelve princesses, there are twelve brothers&#8211;the sons of the Reverend Knight.<\/p>\n<p>Reverend Knight is a hard-working black preacher in Harlem, taking care of his congregation and his twelve sons&#8211;Brooke, Bobby, Joe, Snacky, Gerald and Jackie, Teeny Tiny Tappin&#8217; Theo, Lazy Leo, Big fat Raoul, Billie and Willie, and Michael (head of the clan, a ladies&#8217; man).  He tried to keep the twelve under check but without a wife (there&#8217;s no indication of what happened to her&#8211;I presume she must have died) he&#8217;s somewhat at a loss.  He&#8217;s gone through dozens of nannies and housekeepers, but none of them can solve the problem that plagues the house&#8211;every morning, the twelve young Knight&#8217;s shoes would be threadbare and worn.<\/p>\n<p>One Sunday after church, Reverend Knight goes into his office and prays for help with his sons&#8211;and when he gets home, a woman name Sunday is waiting on the steps.  She wants the job of housekeeper.  She&#8217;s come to help with the boys.<\/p>\n<p>But can Sunday succeed in solving the mystery when all the other housekeepers and nannies have failed?<\/p>\n<p>Turns out there are a lot of secrets in the Knight house&#8211;and Sunday&#8217;s determined to uncover them all.  Who knows but she&#8217;ll have the Reverend Knight dancing before the tale is told!<\/p>\n<p>I adored this rendition.  It&#8217;s quirky, it&#8217;s fun, and it&#8217;s all about dancing (Sorry, I should have warned you that there&#8217;d be spoilers.)  The story itself is fun enough&#8211;but add in that it&#8217;s narrated by the family dog and you&#8217;ve got utter hilarity.  <\/p>\n<p>Check this one out next time you&#8217;re at your library&#8211;and if they don&#8217;t have it, get them to order it.  It&#8217;s a BLAST!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Twelve Dancing Princesses was not a fairy tale that figured heavily into my childhood. Mostly I remember either the fairy tales found in our red-covered copy of Andersen&#8217;s Fairy Tales or the Disneyfied or otherwise pop-culturified tales found in videos and Golden books. My first real exposure to the story occurred this last February, &#8230; <a title=\"The Twelve Dancing Princesses Princes Knights\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/2010\/20100330-2161.htm\">Read more <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The Twelve Dancing Princesses Princes Knights<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[19],"tags":[200,235,313,325,407,950,1139],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2161"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2161\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}