Mary F. C. Pratt retells the fairy-tale quest from the mother's side, and the result is wry and warm. The prince turns away from the passive heroines, the sleeping one who just waits and the one whose goodness the speaker finds smug. The mother keeps her opinions about them to herself, since choosing is his business. What she does say is a dry warning about the cruel mothers-in-law of old stories, the ones who lock girls in rocks or trade them for salad.
Then she waits, holding her breath for years, her mind full of beanstalk-style trees, dragons and glass mountains. The humour is in how an ordinary parent's worry gets dressed in fairy-tale clothes.
The ending is a relief and a celebration. His bride is a reader who "slipped in between the pages," with big feet, inky fingers and a laugh that could shatter stone. She's real, lively and unpolished, and the mood turns from anxious to delighted.