How does a writer deliver a message without seeming didactic? Annette LeBox, also the author of Miss Rafferty’s Rainbow Socks, uses a strong central image and a story form built around archetypal characters.

Princess Vivian lives in a castle surrounded by a marsh from which she gathers wild potatoes and cranberries. She savours the marsh flowers and, most wonderful of all, dances with the elegant cranes that come to feed there. One day a stranger arrives carrying a bat and ball. He teaches the royal household and the villagers a seductive game called Gulleywhupper. Even Princess Vivian succumbs, practicing long hours to perfect her stroke. Soon the king realizes they need a larger playing field, so the villagers dam the stream and drain the marsh. One morning, Princess Vivian misses the cranes. She sets out to find them, but in the tiny patch of remaining marsh, she finds only one pair. Realizing what she has lost, the princess unpiles the dam of stones. “We must choose,” she tells her father when he protests, and soon everyone is helping to unblock the river.

The dancing cranes, taller than the king and with wings like silver sails, provide a compelling image to sum up what castle and village have lost by draining the marsh. The fairytale format summarizes economically the forces at work: a stranger with a seductive gift, a girl who, because she is a princess, has the power to effect change quickly once she comprehends the problem. The medieval never-never land of fairytales is attractively evoked by Kasia Charko’s palette: the villagers in earthy brown tunics and skirts, Princess Vivian in cranberry red, and the tempter in a purple tunic that makes him seem an unnatural intruder in the pastoral scene. This can be enjoyed simply as a good story, but perceptive readers will also see wetlands as the priceless assets they are. As the princess tells her daughter many years later, they’re easy to destroy, but difficult to restore.