The Frog Princess, E.D. Baker

The Frog Princess is one of my sister’s favourite comfort-reads, so it was the first thing she thought to recommend when I had a reading challenge prompt to read something recommended by a family member. It takes a generic medieval-ish setting (castles, royalty, witches), and the usual Frog Prince story, and gives it a little twist to complicate it. If you’ve seen Disney’s The Princess and the Frog, you know the basic twist — apparently, the film was somewhat based on this book, though my sister disagrees about the whole idea. (Setting is different, characters different, etc, etc.)

It’s fun enough, though because it’s aimed at — well, I’m not good at judging: middle grade, perhaps? Whatever that means in British terms… — anyway, say middle grade, it’s pretty slight. It has a fairly clever and strong-minded heroine, who is not the perfect sort of princess — a princess who laughs in entirely the wrong way, and is clumsy about everything she does. That’s an okay role model for kids, even if the whole story basically rushes her towards adulthood and romance, whether she likes it or not.

The main male character is mostly insufferable. Randomly demanding kisses, acting as entitled as they come, boastful… The romance itself, though it has some cute moments, fails to enchant me.

In terms of other characters, there’s some interesting and funny stuff going on in the background, like the character of the snake and the bat. All in all, cute enough, though it’s not something I’ll come back to the way my sister does — wrong point in my life entirely for it to become charmingly nostalgic.

Rating: 3/5