Baker, E. D.
THE FROG PRINCESS
New York : Bloomsbury, 2002.
IL 3-6,RL 5.5
ISBN 1582347999

(2 booktalks)

Emeralda, or Emma, isn't the princess most of us imagine when we think of fairy tales and the days of knights in shining armor.  For one, she usually trips over her own feet when she tries to curtsy.  When she laughs she sounds like a donkey braying.  And she has no desire to marry Prince Jorge, despite her mother's wishes.

In an effort to avoid the prince, who her mother has scheduled for an upcoming visit, Emma takes off for the swamp, "a magical place where new lives began and old ones ended."  There she encounters a talking frog named Eadric who claims he's really a prince under a witch's magic spell.  He wants Emma to kiss him so he can turn back into the handsome prince he claims to be.  At first Emma wants no part of kissing a slimy amphibian but, eventually, she caves in.  But instead of Eadric the frog turning back into Eadric the handsome prince, Emma turns into a frog just like Eadric.

Enmma doesn't particularly like being a frog.  she must learn how to hop, how to evade snakes and other predators and, worst of all, she must learn how to catch and eat insects.  Yuck!  Will Emma and Eadric have to live out the rest of their days as frogs in the swamp?  Or will they somehow find a way of returning to their human forms?  To find out, read this fun and fast paced spin on an old fairy tale yourself.  (Stella Michel, Newbridge Rd. School Library)

Booktalk #2

Princess Emeralda, a clumsy fourteen year-old, prefers playing in the swamp to conversing with arrogant Prince Jorge, the suitor her mother intends for her to marry. Slipping away from the castle, she meets a frog while frolicking in the marsh. He tells her that he is really Prince Eadric, turned into a frog by a tricky witch. To reverse the evil spell, he needs a kiss from a real princess. Princess Emeralda, feeling sorry for the spunky frog, finally kisses him but, SURPRISE, she turns into a frog, too. Read this suspenseful tale of two brave and ingenious magical frogs that go on a daring adventure to attempt to turn themselves back into their former selves.  (Jean B. Bellavance for Pennsylvania Young Reader's Choice Awards, 2006-2007)