The Prince of the Pond

THE PRINCE OF THE POND
By Donna Jo Napoli
Puffin, 1992

Category: Middle-grade Fiction

This is one of my all time favorite read-aloud chapter books; I have now read it to my kids twice. It is impossible to read without doing the voices, which explains why my kids spent most of both readings rolling on their bedroom floor belly-laughing. And that explains why I enjoy this book so much … all that rolling and belly-laughing makes me happy.

The story is told by a female frog, later named Jade, who comes across the craziest thing in the hag’s yard: a giant, clumsy, and very handsome male frog. She finds him on the slate walkway, right next to a pile of fancy human clothes. Although the big male has trouble hopping and croaking and even catching bugs with his tongue, he seems like a nice frog. Jade sticks with him, and so we are treated to a frog’s-eye view of the frog prince … um, I mean the fawg pin.

Our book picks for the rest of the week are banned and beautiful (we’ve chosen #14 and #21). Happy Banned Books Week to one and all!