The Duke Who Outlawed Jelly Beans and Other Stories

Johnny Valentine. Alyson Books, $10.95 (32pp) ISBN 978-1-55583-847-8

Five fairy tales teach tolerance in The Duke Who Outlawed Jelly Beans: And Other Stories (1991) by Valentine, illus. by Schmidt. ""The Frog Prince"" leaves his own wicked parents to live with his rescuer, Nicholas, and his family. In the title story, a duke decrees that all children must have one mother and one father; the kids, mocking this and other silly laws, reveal the duke's folly.

Featured Children's Reviews

Freya Finch

A fledgling teen Valkyrie tries to avert Ragnarök in Finch’s spirited, Norse mythology–inspired debut. Most assume Bryn Martel, her older sisters Prima and Reagan, and their Continue reading »

Deke Moulton

White-cued Benji Zeb—on the cusp of making his bar mitzvah—is struggling to keep many secrets as well as live up to the expectations of his kibbutz family. His first secret—he Continue reading »

Kristin O'Donnell Tubb

Contemporary Charleston, S.C., provides the backdrop for this cunning mystery by Tubb (Luna Howls at the Moon), in which a grieving tween’s often laugh-aloud misadventures in Continue reading »

Katherine Rundell

Writing in the tradition of rumbustious British children’s classics, Rundell (One Christmas Wish) introduces Mink, a headstrong city-dwelling child who “did not believe in Continue reading »