Frogkisser!

Frogkisser! by Garth Nix is a funny, reworking of the classic fairy tale, The Princess and the Frog. In this version, Princess Anya, who, with her loyal dog must embark on a quest to acquire the ingredients for a special lip balm, one that enables it’s user to change transformed beings back to their original form, along the way, she also decides to save the whole kingdom from her wicked sorcerer of a stepfather. As she and Ardent travel along, they also acquire companions that are in need of the wondrous lip balm, Shrub, a young thief that has been turned into a newt, and Smoothie, a River Otter who has been transformed into a half-human.

I was both amused and charmed by this YA story and fell in love with these characters. Of course I show more couldn’t help but love Ardent the dog the most, he is wonderfully portrayed and livens up any scene that he was in. It was obvious that the author enjoyed the writing of this story, pulling tidbits from many different fairy tales and adding some marvellous items such as the Wallet of Crunchings and Munchings and the intriguing flying carpet with the unpronounceable name of Pathadwanimithochozkal.

While I was always aware that I was reading a YA story and I felt that it was a little too long, Frogkisser! is well worth the read. A good story with well developed characters – some to root for and some to boo. It had me wishing that I could read this aloud to a group of youngsters just to see their reactions. show less

A highly amusing fairy-tale filled romp, with the same light-hearted adventure that Nix brought to Newt's Emerald. Princess Anya, with the weight of promises on her shoulders and a quest to make transmogrification-reversing lip balm is pursued by headline spewing Heralds and her evil stepstepfather. It sounds pretty silly. It is pretty silly, but there are deeper matters to consider when you are a princess on a quest, even when you think your choices don't matter. Heart, adventure, crazy carpet-riding shenanigans and a whole host of transmogrified heroes. Great fun!

Advanced Reader's copy provided by Edelweiss.

Frogkisser! is a delightful fantasy quest story about a princess who must save her kingdom from an evil sorcerer (also her step-step-father), but first needs to kiss a frog to turn him back into a prince for her perpetually love-stricken older sister.

It is a decidedly middle grade book, and I would have loved to read it aloud with my niblings if any of them were old enough to sit still long enough to listen. There's danger and excitement, but nothing too scary, and the only romance is silly Morven's constantly rotating suitors in the background. It's also got talking animals, including the Royal Dogs, ravens, a boy transformed into a newt, and an otter half-transformed into a girl.

My experience with Garth Nix's work (especially some of show more his short stories) is that he likes to deconstruct common fairy tales or fantasy elements and say "what if this were so? what would be the knock-on effects?" or then take those elements and make them more sensible. With Frogkisser!, he lovingly and lightheartedly plonks a lampshade on any number of common fantasy quest tropes, then says "yes, okay, that's good". These include comments about sorcery and transmogrification, the way servants can be treated in a royal household, the preparations needed for a proper Quest, the usefulness of flying carpets, even the standard wizard garb (our Good Wizard happens to be a beautiful young woman - who wears a false but very fluffy and white beard). It helps that Princess Anya has taught herself about the outside world through reading books and listening to stories from the matriarch of the Royal Dogs, so she is familiar with what traditionally go into Quests and such.

In the course of the search for ingredients to make a mango-flavored magic lipbalm that will allow Princess Anya to kiss transformed creatures and turn them back to their true selves, she learns about being a good ruler. Her kingdom is one of many after an ancient and large one was broken up a very long time ago by floods and a powerful sorcerer, and important things like The All-Encompassing Bill of Rights and Wrongs was forgotten. She learns about the Bill of Rights and Wrongs which means also learning about her naive selfishness in the castle, about how having unlimited power isn't exactly a good thing, and that sometimes you have to do a job you don't feel perfectly suited to, and so you must adapt.

This is the kind of book I adore: indulging in all the fantasy story tropes and cliches, but acknowledging that it's an indulgence with good humor and maybe turning the cliches upside down a bit. I don't know which part I liked best. I love the various characters who are stuck into prescribed roles, but don't quite fit - the Royal Dogs who are wise guardians but can't help being doggies; the Gerald the Heralds, a band of people whose job is solely to proclaim the news and must wear false noses and wigs to look the part, or the beautiful young Good Wizard who herself has a luxuriously long white beard and voice-changing lolly for when she needs to do the formal regalia. I also loved the different ways of doing magic, which have rules and consequences - the mercantile witches, remote and rule-bound wizards, and purely power and thus mostly evil sorcerers.

There are a lot of little things that delighted me, actually, and I will resist listing them all. Let it suffice to say that it was a very fun book, and I highly recommend it for young people who love fantasy. Maybe even not-so-young people, too, who enjoy reconstructions of standard fare. show less

Poor Princess Anya. Forced to live with her evil stepmother’s new husband, her evil stepstepfather. Plagued with an unfortunate ability to break curses with a magic-assisted kiss. And forced to go on the run when her stepstepfather decides to make the kingdom entirely his own.
Aided by a loyal talking dog, a boy thief trapped in the body of a newt, and some extraordinarily mischievous wizards, Anya sets off on a Quest that, if she plays it right, will ultimately free her land—and teach her a thing or two about the use of power, the effectiveness of a well-placed pucker, and the finding of friends in places both high and low.

Princess Anya really just wants to spend all her time in her castle's library studying how to be a sorcerer and avoiding her evil stepfather, Duke Rikard, and the dramatics of her twin sister, Morven. But when Duke Rikard decides to move up his evil plans to steal the crown from Morven and exile Anya, Anya is forced to go on a Quest to recruit aid to help defeat her stepfather. At the same time, she must also collect ingredients for a lip balm that will allow her to transform one of Morven's former suitors back into a human after Duke Rikard turns him into a frog. As Anya's Quest goes on, it also grows and Anya must decide just what kind of princess she wants to be.

Decidedly cute, this was a charming take on several different fairy show more tales and the fantasy genre in general. I solidly enjoyed it but didn't quite love it, although I think that's largely a symptom of not being the target market for the book. If you enjoy humourous takes on fantasy and enjoy older middle-grade/ young YA, this one is definitely worth picking up. Also, if you like truly adorable talking dogs. Or just dogs. show less

Start with a dash of Monty Python’s sly humor, add a double helping of the best of Brian Jaques, sprinkle with a triple pinch of classic fairy tale and stir gently. When done, you have this delight of a book.
In order to fulfill her quest, Anya braves a giant, a coven of bickering witches, Ethical robbers, unethical robbers, the Grand wizard (who lives in a hollowed-out dragon skeleton, a flying carpet with an attitude. That would be more than enough to deter most young girls, but Anya’s made of much sterner stuff. She finds a way to wrap her head around the realization that her initial quest was merely the tip of the iceberg, gather an army and save the day. How she does that makes for a truly dandy read, great for tweens, teens and show more light fantasy loving adults. It would be a good family read-aloud choice and I’d love to see it as a movie. show less

Princess Anya just wants to stay in her library and learn about magic, but instead she must go on a quest. She promised her sister that she would find Prince Denholm and reverse the frog transformation visited on him by the princesses' step-stepfather, but she's out of the magical lip balm that will enable her to transform him in the absence of true love, and the ingredients aren't all that easy to obtain. Her quest will take her deep into the forest, to the home of a good wizard and the gathering place of witches, to the city's murky sewers and to the fortress of the sorcerers. Along the way, she will learn some things about her country's history that were not covered in the books she has read, and her quest may become about more than show more just kissing one frog...

I enjoyed listening to this lighthearted fantasy quest story. I've seen this marketed as YA, but I'd call it pretty firmly middle-grade. This warm, funny read that will appeal to fans of Jessica Day George and Gail Carson Levine. show less