THEO'S PRINCESS

Inspired by an old story, a frog goes out in search of a princess who will kiss him and turn him into a prince in this Dutch and Belgian import.

Not all of the princesses who appear in Lee’s pale, dainty scenes are White, but the story’s underlying moral is as conventional as ever. Theo’s personal inquiries turn up no candidates, but when he distributes posters with a time and place to gather, a parade of smiling, neatly turned-out young girls sporting crowns queue up for smooches. Alas, no transformation occurs—until Sofia, a beautiful green straggler in plainer dress, hops up and, despite her announcement that that she’s no princess, gives him a kiss that makes him feel like a real prince. Off the two frogs caper amid a cloud of butterflies, certain of living “happily ever after.” The tiresome message that young readers may be assured of the same if only they will stick to their own kind and class really doesn’t need another iteration—particularly when it features unattached girls literally lining up to be tested and then instantly disappearing from view when found wanting. Adam Rex and Scott Campbell’s XO, Ox (2017) or Leslie Braunstein and Joshua S. Brunet’s I’m in Love With a Big Blue Frog (2013), for instance, offer less parochial views of romance, and to give princesses a better showing, Dolores Brown’s The Truly Brave Princesses, illustrated by Sonja Wimmer (2018), is just a beginning. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10.2-by-19.6-inch double-page spreads viewed at 75% of actual size.)

Kiss this one off.