The Frog Princess (Tales of the Frog Princess) [Paperback]

E. D. Baker (Author)

Book Description

Release date: September 9, 2004 | Age Range: 8 and up | Series: Tales of the Frog Princess

A Texas Lone Star Reading List Book
"A Book Sense 76 Children's Pick

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This debut novel follows the adventures of 14-year-old Princess Emeralda and the talking frog she meets one day in a swamp. The frog begs her to give him a kiss so that he will turn back into Prince Eadric, his identity before an evil witch turned him into an amphibian. When the young royal obliges, she, too, is transformed into a frog, and the two leap off in search of the spell-casting witch to ask her to reverse her handiwork. Describing the duo's futile quest in laborious detail, the author pads her tale with some curiously drab characters, including another witch (who hopes to use Emeralda and Eadric in a spell she's concocting) and a bat and snake who reside in her cottage. The tale occasionally offers peppy dialogue and some comical scenes-particularly as the newly transformed Emeralda adjusts to catching flies with her tongue ("My eye-tongue coordination wasn't very good," she admits). Unfortunately, the plot doesn't make much of the magical elements (for example, the characters' encounters with a dragon and a nymph seem inconsequential), resulting in a disappointingly flat fantasy. Ages 8-14.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From School Library Journal

Grade 4-6-An amusing fairy-tale adventure that takes the frog-turned-prince story a little further. Princess Emeralda is incredibly clumsy, she brays like a donkey when she laughs, and she would rather spend time outdoors or learning magic from her witch-aunt Grassina than marry self-centered Prince Jorge. When she runs off to the nearby swamp, she meets "Frog" who, naturally, claims to be an enchanted prince and begs her for a spell-breaking kiss. But when she finally complies, something goes terribly wrong, and suddenly Emma is a green-skinned, pond-hopping frog. She and Eadric spend the rest of the book trying to undo the spells that have bewitched them, struggling to avoid a dragon, a frog-eating dog, and an inept angry witch along the way. When they are finally released from their enchantments, it's clear they will live a happy-if rather unconventional-life together. Baker's characters, especially Emma and Eadric, are more than meets the eye. The tale moves at a good pace, and, though the happy ending is predictable, the trials and tribulations that precede it are interesting. However, it's difficult to determine the book's audience. While the story would appeal to primary to intermediate grade girls, the vocabulary is rather sophisticated and seems to be more suited to young adults. Perhaps it would work best as a read-aloud. For fairy-tale themes more in tune with their specific audiences, turn to Donna Jo Napoli's The Prince of the Pond (Dutton, 1992) for intermediates, and her Zel (Puffin, 1998) or Beast (Atheneum, 2000) for the older crowd.
Nancy Menaldi-Scanlan, LaSalle Academy, Providence, RI
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Age Range: 8 and up
  
• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Childrens; Reprint edition (September 9, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1582349231
• ISBN-13: 978-1582349237
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (100 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #121,699 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

E. D. Baker made her international debut with The Frog Princess, which was a Book Sense Children's Pick and has sold in many languages around the world. Since then she has written four other books in the series: Dragon's Breath, Once Upon a Curse, No Place for Magic and The Salamander Spell, as well as Wings: A Fairy Tale, a new look at the classic Midsummernight's Dream story. A mother of three and grandmother of one, Ms. Baker lives in Maryland, where she and her daughters breed horses and provide a home for five cats, three dogs, and three goats. www.edbakerbooks.com

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A frogging fabulous read! May 2, 2005

By M. A. Bechaz

Format:Hardcover

If you like fairy tales, and you have a sense of humour, then I've no doubt you will love this book just as much as I did.

Once I started reading this, I just couldn't put it down. It's got the whole shebang: romance, humour, adventure, magic, witches both good and bad, fickle faeries, awesome dragons, and even a bat with agoraphobia.

This is an imaginative retake on the old Frog Prince story. By a strange twist of magic, when the Princess goes to kiss the frog--POOF!--she is also turned into a frog. From then on, the Frog Prince and Princess have to fight to survive in a less than frog-friendly world, and try to regain their former human selves.

The characters in this are adorable. Princess Emma is hardly your steroetypical princess. She's clumsy and awkward and headstrong, far more at home in the swamp than she was in her castle. Prince Eadric, the frog she kisses, is also far from being a typical prince. He has a healthy sense of witty sarcasm, and an even healthier appetite for food. He's also spent so long asking princesses to kiss him that he's become a little set in his ways, and never gives up asking Emma for a smooch. But he's got a good heart to match those amorous wiles, and courage to spare.

This is a fast paced book that is so good, you'll be sad when it's over.

I can't wait to read the sequels...

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars "If I had Realized you were such an Exalted Personage I Never would've said such Churlish Comments." February 5, 2009

By R. M. Fisher TOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Paperback

Writing a critical review for a book as harmless and fluffy as "The Frog Princess" makes me feel awful, almost like I'm unnecessarily picking on a little girl in the corner who is minding her own business and trying to quietly read her book. But the fact remains that although "The Frog Princess" is a diverting and easy-to-read story, it's also rather patchy and forgettable. Quite simply: there are better books to be read to your kids, and plenty that include frogs and princesses.

Princess Emeralda (or "Emma" as she prefers) is suffers from a domineering mother and an arranged marriage. She has a witchy-aunt to keep her company, but sadly Aunt Grassina has gone on a journey to places unknown...just in time for Emma to get herself into serious trouble. Having met a talking-frog in the swamplands around the castle, the so-called Prince Eadric coaxes a kiss out of the princess in the hopes that she'll break the spell cast over him. In the book's central conceit, the kiss has quite the opposite effect: Emma is turned into a frog.

Now struggling to control her new body and its taste for insects, Emma joins up with Eadric in the attempt to break the curse that now binds both of them. What follows is a range of mini-adventures in which the froggy couple come up against several obstacles in their journey reach to Emma's castle and (hopefully) find an answer to their predicament. Such adventures include a wannabe witch, a thieving otter, a grumpy fairy, and various other talking animals that help or hinder their passage home. Other even minor characters, such as a dragon and a nymph, do neither, being introduced into the story only to disappear again just as quickly. Often the language is too contemporary for the setting: "he thought I had a crush on him" and "give me a break!..." are two examples, as well as a character called "Li'l Stinker."

Narrated in first-person by Emma, the tone is breezy and cheerful, with a comedic edge that keeps the pace moving. Without her voice, I suspect the adventures would be more tedious than enjoyable. Emma herself is of the new breed of princesses who are swiftly becoming just as much a stereotype as their swooning, damsel-in-distress predecessors. She's rebellious, she's opinionated, she's unconventional and her defining feature is - you guessed it - clumsiness. What is it with girls these days that they can't walk in a straight line without (in the most endearing way possible, of course) tripping over themselves?

Eadric is arrogant, boastful and self-centered, constantly asking Emma for more kisses as the adventure continues, and who doesn't seem to have improved much by his stint as a frog. It's his own fault that he's under a spell in the first place (he insulted a witch, and not accidentally either) and although I can appreciate the fact that he's not a typical prince-charming either in or out of his frog-skin, I also felt that Emma could have done much better for herself.

The little girl in the corner reading her book now has tears in her eyes, and I feel unaccountably guilty. How can I criticize a book that features a crowned frog on a pink cover? It's not hurting anyone! Despite its flaws, readers of a certain age and gender will certainly enjoy this fractured fairytale, and as I browse the online bookstore, I can see that there are several sequels that no doubt continue the adventures of Emma and Eadric, suggesting some level of regular readers.

But I think the problem is that library bookshelves everywhere are currently flooded with retold, updated and/or fractured fairytales, many of which feature a royal amphibian under a spell...and many of these other efforts are simply much better than what is presented here. Just off the top of my head, I can recommend Donna Jo Napoli's: The Prince of the Pond: Otherwise Known as De Fawg Pin or The Frog Prince, Continued (Picture Puffin) by Jon Scieszka, two other authors who have taken the traditional fairytale and heartily skewered it with a lot more wit and imagination.

Then there's Water Song: A Retelling of the Frog Prince (Once Upon a Time) in the "Once Upon a Time" series that moves the story into a WWI setting, or the beautiful picture book A Frog Prince by Alix Berenzy who (like Baker) plays with a similar twist in the transformation sequence.

I also recall the short-stories "Toad" in Patricia McKillip's Harrowing the Dragon or "The Frogskin Slippers" by Meredith Ann Pierce in Waters Luminous and Deep (Firebird). And John Cleese seems to love playing royal talking frogs in animated movies: he's done so in The Swan Princess (Special Edition) and Shrek 2 (Widescreen Edition). I can even remember the story being used in the old King's Quest Collection computer games in which Princess Rosella has to drop a golden ball into a lily pond in order to kiss the frog and obtain his crown.

The fact is that the market is full of froggy stories, and "The Frog Princess" gets buried under all this competition! The tale of the Frog Prince is a popular fairytale for authors to explore, (with its themes of transformation, beauty-under-the-skin, and just-desserts), and sometimes I don't recommend a book, not because there's something wrong with it, but simply because there are so many better books on the same subject matter out there. Read more ›

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Good! May 6, 2008

A Kid's Review

Format:Paperback

This book was really good! I am 10 1/2 and I loved it and couldn't put it down until I was finished. I just bought more books from this author. I recommend it!

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Hilarious New Fairy Tale for Middle Readers November 11, 2004

By Erika Sorocco

Format:Hardcover

Fourteen-year-old Emeralda is no ordinary Princess, for her laugh is like a donkey braying, and she couldn't be more clumsy. This information is constantly thrown in her face by her Mother, the Queen, which is why Emeralda "Emma," is often found by the swamp. Which brings us to today. Emma has run into a frog, a talking frog, who insists that he is Prince Eadric, and that Emma must kiss him for him to turn back into a Prince. However, the kiss goes awry, and suddenly, Emma is just as much a frog as Prince Eadric. Now the two of them must try to survive as frogs, as they try to undo the spell, and bring them both back to their normal, human forms, before they are another animals dinner.

I love fairy tales, and E.D. Baker's THE FROG PRINCESS, is no exception. Her wonderful descriptions of life as a frog are both entertaining and suspenseful, while the entire premise of the story will keep all readers glued to the book until the very last page, in order to find out what will happen at the end. Overall, this is a lovely new novel for both male and female middle readers who enjoy a wacky fairy tale.

Erika Sorocco

Book Review Columnist for The Community Bugle Newspaper

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Magical Adventure June 17, 2007

By Sarah Baker

Format:Paperback

This book is a great book to read if you like suspense, comedy, fantasy, fairy tales, and romance. I was glad that there was going to be a 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and in August there is going to be a 5th one in this series. I liked this book so much that the next day i just had to go and buy the 2nd and 3rd one. That is unusual for me because I don't even like to read. It is about a girl who doesn't want to marry this man named Prince Jorge so she runs away and so she goes to this swamp. When she is there she runs along a frog who then asks her to kiss him. She does, but then something goes wrong. She turns into a frog instead of him turning into a prince! You will have to read this book to find out how they fix the mistake.