The ABC of Fantastic Princes

PreS-Gr 2—Meet Prince Willoughby and 25 other princes—amphibians all—from around the world, each of whom is called upon to introduce himself to a gathering of princesses. Starting with Augustus, "born in August in Augsburg, Germany" the parade of princes includes Willoughby and continues on to Zwaambi of Zambia who is "full of zeal and zing." Each frog or toad prince presents himself in highly sophisticated, sometimes challenging, always alliterative language accompanied by full-page, abstracted portraits of froggy-faced royalty in generally upright, rather human form. Illustrations appear to be watercolor. Spot art on each page creates visual continuity and suggests something in the prince's speech. What could be considered cultural tokenism may be due to limitations of the form. For example, "gorgeous Prince George from Georgia, USA" had a gold-miner granddaddy, and his "daddy Gordon was a guitar-slinging godfather to the greatest gospel-singing group in all of Gainesville." Each princess has found her prince by the end, and the red rabbit master of ceremonies asks readers which prince they would choose. In any case, this unusual approach, visually and textually, may inspire further research to identify places and word meaning.—Maria B. Salvadore, formerly at District of Columbia Public Library