The Prince of the Pond
Otherwise Known as De Fawg Pin
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
Who is that handsome green stranger?
None of the pond dwellers has ever seen the peculiar new frog before. They found him sitting in a pile of human clothes outside the hag’s house. What a strange frog he is! He gets his feet tangled when he tries to jump, he refuses to eat bugs, and he can’t tell a toad from a frog. He calls himself “De Fawg Pin,” and he’s about to turn pond life topsy-turvy!
“The frog prince motif has inspired many books, but few as original as this novel.”—Booklist
“An animal fantasy that fairy tale readers will relish.”—Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, starred review
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This variation on "The Frog Prince" is told by Jade, a watchful female frog who teaches the bewitched royal how to survive in the pond. Jade eventually becomes a frog wife and mother to a school of tadpoles. The romance between these two characters, somewhat convoluted and tinged with adult sensibilities, changes Jade's outlook and alters the traditional habits of the frog world. Incorporated into the story are absorbing observations about pond life from a factual perspective. However, Pin's attempts to humanize the frog world are questionable, as his eventual return to human form in front of his amphibian family leaves them saddened and bereft. The story is further weakened by an ongoing, supposedly comic device: the Prince, due to a problem with his tongue, indulges in a kind of baby talk, so that his words emerge as "fawg" for frog and "obteh" for lobster . Aided little by Schachner's rough-hewn black-and-white drawings (a few witty, some repetitious), the story, sadly, does not measure up to its premise. Ages 7-10.
