“Once upon a time …”
It’s a frequently used and familiar first line — one many of us remember from childhood story time or from reading to our own little ones — from classic fairy tales such as “Snow White” and “Sleeping Beauty.”
Today, old-fashioned stories about princesses being saved by princes are being turned on their heads as part of The Martin Agency’s Now Upon a Time series of fairy tale rewrites. The new storytelling platform was the brainchild of Neel Williams, group creative director at the Richmond-based agency, who was inspired to put a fresh, more modern spin on the books he reads to his two daughters.
“We realized together that maybe some of the princesses, especially, could use a little bit of updating so that they were a little bit stronger and braver and were better role models for little girls,” Williams said in an interview with Richmond’s NBC12.
The most recent book in the series is “Princess & the Pea-tition,” a new take on “The Princess and the Pea.” The story of a girl named Princess who sets out to change the way the leader of the land is selected, the book was written by Kim Nguyen, a debut author and Martin Agency creative director; illustrated by Libby VanderPloeg; and published by Gloo Books. Princess suggests that, rather than searching for a delicate girl who notices a pea under her mattress, the creatures in the land vote for a leader to represent them — a nod to the United States’ electoral system.
“[‘The Princess and the Pea’] was a classic fairy tale that needed to be updated,” Nguyen says. “It was such a weird story, and I thought it was a stupid way to choose a leader. I was like, ‘It should be a democracy.’”
The daughter of Vietnamese refugees, Nguyen says this message of democracy is very important to her. “My parents had to flee their country and quite literally lost their democracy,” she says. “So, when I was growing up, that was a big part of my upbringing — my parents being involved in elections — that has been a big part of my parents parenting me.”
Being a parent to her 4-year-old daughter, Quynh, also influenced Nguyen’s approach to rewriting this vintage fairy tale. “I want my kid to know that she can lead people and be kind and ask people what their opinions are and bring people together. I want her to know that she is one voice and one vote, and that matters,” Nguyen says. “You can be a feminine-looking princess and still be a leader — that’s what I really wanted her to take away from [this book]. You don’t have to have either/or. You can take charge and do something good for people. Princesses are great, and dresses are great, but we also should do more.”
It was important to Nguyen and her partners at Now Upon a Time that they put the message of “Princess & the Pea-tition” into practice. They partnered with two female-founded nonpartisan organizations to host voter registration events: former first lady Michelle Obama’s When We All Vote and Erin Loos Cutraro’s She Should Run. Both nonprofits focus on education about voting and encourage participation in elections.
“Princess & the Pea-tition” garnered recognition from “The Today Show” last month, when it was named to former first daughter Jenna Bush Hager’s Read With Jenna Junior’s 2025 Summer Reading List in the picture book category. Nguyen was the only debut author recognized on the list. “I love that [the book] got a co-sign from an Obama organization and a Bush daughter,” Nguyen says. “It shows that it’s a bipartisan message in participating in the future of your country.”
With Virginia electing its governor and General Assembly members this year, the book’s message is particularly topical. Nguyen hopes it will inspire children to want to vote when they’re older and encourage adults to participate in elections now. “If you want to make a change, you have to participate,” she says. “The point of the book is that democracy is good. No matter who you are, if you want a say, you need to vote in an election.”
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