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The Frog Prince

Name: The Frog Prince
Author: Mike Klaassen

THE BROTHERS GRIMM STORY TOLD AS A NOVELLA

by Mike Klaassen ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

The chapters about Gerit’s life as a frog in the wild are entertaining, but this retelling adds little depth or nuance to...

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This fairy-tale novella retells the Brothers Grimm’s classic “The Frog Prince” as a parable on the importance of keeping promises.

While out hunting frogs, teenage prince Gerit falls into a bog; when Wibke, a witch, happens by, he begs for her help so that he won’t drown by morning. She saves him but only after extracting elaborate promises from him. Unwilling to meet her demands, he runs away, and as punishment, she transforms him into a frog with a spell that can only be broken by three kisses from a princess. Gerit spends several months learning to survive as a frog by keeping moist, hunting insects, and avoiding predators. After hibernating through the winter, he travels to a neighboring kingdom, where the young princess Anneliese lives. When she loses a golden ball in a pond, Gerit offers to retrieve it in exchange for the requisite kisses. Like Gerit did, Anneliese makes the promise in bad faith and runs away, angering her father: “Your word...is your bond, regardless of to whom you offer it,” he says. He commands her to keep the frog as a guest in her home until she makes good on her promise. Klaassen includes a translation of an early version of the fairy tale—one which notably omits the plot point regarding the kiss, which became traditional in later tellings; instead, the spell is broken when the angry princess strikes the frog against a wall. It’s fun to see this story from the frog’s perspective, as his situation is the most desperate and strange; at one point, for example, he gets his tongue comically stuck to his own face. But although the tale is framed as a parable about promises, it seems to offer a better lesson on the distastefulness of coercing unreasonable concessions from vulnerable children. Readers may find the king’s chastisement of the princess for refusing to kiss someone she has no desire to kiss to be off-putting, to say the least, but Wibke’s exploitation of the drowning boy’s peril is no less troubling.

The chapters about Gerit’s life as a frog in the wild are entertaining, but this retelling adds little depth or nuance to its source material.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Dog Ear Publisher

Review Posted Online: Dec. 16, 2016

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

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BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

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Sisters in and out of love.

Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.

Pub Date: May 1, 2003

ISBN: 0-345-45073-6

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS

by C.S. Lewis ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1942

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These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.