Princess Minna: The Giant Beanstalk

THE GIANT BE ANSTALK

“Full of humour and fun”

with COLOUR PICTURES

THE GIANT BEANSTALK

More ROYALLY EXCITING ADVENTURES to look out for:

THE ENCHANTED FOREST

THE UNICORN MIX-UP

THE BIG BAD SNOWY DAY

THE BEST PRINCESS

THE WICKED WOOD

THE GIANT BEANSTALK

First published in the UK in 2024 by Nosy Crow Ltd Wheat Wharf, 27a Shad Thames, London, SE1 2XZ, UK

Nosy Crow Eireann Ltd

44 Orchard Grove, Kenmare, Co Kerry, V93 FY22, Ireland

Nosy Crow and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Nosy Crow Ltd.

Text copyright © Kirsty Applebaum, 2024

Cover and inside illustrations copyright © Sahar Haghgoo, 2024

The right of Kirsty Applebaum and Sahar Haghgoo to be identified as the author and illustrator respectively of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved

ISBN: 978 1 83994 799 5

A CIP catalogue record for this book will be available from the British Library.

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Chapter

One

This is Minna. She is a princess.

Princess Minna is very good at lots of things.

She is good at taming unicorns, kissing frogs and fighting dragons.

Princess Minna lives in Castle Tall-Towers with the King, the Queen and a wizard called Raymond.

A few days ago, Raymond bought a musical cow from a cow-seller in the market. He paid for her with some magic beans he’d had lying around. He named her Mildred.

Mildred the musical cow sings all the time.

“Doobie-doobie-doobie-dum!” she goes. “Tra-la-la-la-la-la-lee!”

It’s driving everyone potty.

Castle Tall-Towers has lots of very tall towers.

When all is well in the kingdom, grey doves sweep and swoop around them making soft cooing noises. The doves make the whole castle smell like tutti-frutti ice cream.

When all is not well in the kingdom, big seagulls come and scare the doves away. Then they flip and flap around the towers, making screechy squawking noises. They make the whole castle smell like old seaweed.

One morning, Princess Minna was still in bed. She hadn’t yet opened her eyes. She hadn’t yet opened her ears. But she could tell by the smell of old seaweed that all was not well today.

She jumped out of bed, ran down the stairs and found everyone eating breakfast.

“Whatever is wrong with the kingdom?” she asked.

“We’ve no idea,” said the King.

“We were hoping you might know,” said Raymond, magically.

“Doobie-scoobie-woobie-doo!” sang Mildred.

“Whatever it is, could you sort it out please, Minna?” said the Queen. “There are seagull feathers everywhere.”

“Absolutely!” said Princess Minna. Sorting out the kingdom was her favourite thing to do in the whole world.

She ran out of the castle.

“Lorenzo!” she called.

Lorenzo the dragon was Princess Minna’s best friend. He flew down from the sky and landed on the front lawn.

Princess Minna climbed on to his back. “Could you take me into town, please? I need to find out what’s wrong with the kingdom.”

Lorenzo flapped his great wings and off they went.

Wallooop wallooop wallooop!

“Thank goodness you’re here, Princess Minna,” cried the townspeople. “Look! An enormous beanstalk has appeared in the marketplace, as if by magic.”

“Gosh.” It was the biggest beanstalk Princess Minna had ever seen. “The cow-seller must have dropped one of Raymond’s magic beans,” she said. “You have to be very careful with magic beans, you know. You can’t go dropping them just any old where.”

“Actually, we don’t really mind the beanstalk,” said the townspeople. “It’s the giant who came down it that’s the problem.”

“Giant?” gasped Princess Minna. “What giant?”

The townspeople told her what had happened.

“Earlier this morning, an enormous giant climbed down the beanstalk.”

“When she reached the ground, she cupped her enormous hand behind her enormous ear and said, ‘Hark! Who sings the beautiful songs that reach my home in the sky?’”

“Then she stomped around town, squishing all the flowers.”

“We were so scared we hid in our gardens.”

“And in the end,” said Little Betty Button from Button’s B shop, “she grabbed a noisy bantam from our shop and went back up the beanstalk.”

“What’s a bantam?” asked Princess Minna.

“It’s like a chicken, except smaller,” said Little Betty. “Will you help us find it?”

“Of course I will,” said Princess Minna.

Chapter Two

Princess Minna rolled up her royal sleeves and climbed on to the beanstalk. She went up and up and up, through fresh leaves and twirly tendrils .

She kept climbing until eventually she was far above the clouds . At the very top, a long, wide road lay before her. She jumped off the beanstalk and began to walk.

After a time, Princess Minna came upon an enormous house.

She lifted the enormous doorknocker.

Knockknock.

No one answered. She pushed the door. It was open!

Princess Minna crept inside.

She tiptoed past an enormous pair of slippers and an enormous umbrella.

She soon found herself in an enormous kitchen.

Thud, thud, thud.

What was that?

Enormous footsteps?

“Fee fi fizz fess,” said an enormous voice. “I sniff the smell of a small princess!”

Quick as a blink, Princess Minna hopped inside a basket of very big vegetables. She peered out. An enormous giant stomped into the kitchen. Princess Minna held her breath.

The giant looked around, but she couldn’t see the hidden princess.

So she shrugged her enormous shoulders and took something out of her enormous pocket.

“Cluck-cluck-cluckcluck-cluck.”

“Mrs Bantam,” boomed the

giant.

“Your clucking is so noisy.

You

must

be the one who sings the beautiful songs

I

keep hearing. Only a voice as loud as yours could reach all the way up to my home in the sky. Sing to me, my friend. Let me hear your wonderful music.”

“Clu-uck! Clu-uck! Clu-uck!” sang the bantam.

The

giant

covered her ears.

“What a horrible sound! You’re not the one who sings beautifully at all.”

She sat down at the kitchen table and began to heave big, loud, giant sighs. Sigh! Sigh! Sigh!

Princess Minna seized her chance. She slipped behind the giant, grabbed the bantam and tiptoed out of the house.

She ran all the way down the long, wide road as fast as she could.

Then she leapt on to the beanstalk and climbed down and down and down.

“Look, it’s Princess Minna,” cried the townspeople.

When Princess Minna reached the bottom, she handed the bantam over to Little Betty.

Phew. Thank goodness the kingdom was sorted out. She did not want to go up there again!

She bid goodbye to the townspeople and flew away on Lorenzo’s back.

Wallooop wallooop wallooop!

As they neared Castle Tall-Towers, Princess Minna could hear Mildred singing. “Tiddely-pom! Tiddely-dee!”

But she could also hear something else.

It was the seagulls, screeching and squawking!

“Oh dear, Lorenzo,” said Princess Minna. “The seagulls are still here. The kingdom isn’t sorted at all. We’ll have to go straight back to town.”