The Frog Prince, Continued (2024)

“The Frog Prince Continued” is another addition to Jon Scieska’s fractured fairy tales collection and is a hilarious story about marriage problems. Jon Scieska’s witty writing delightfully expresses the Frog Prince’s dilemma about being a human and changing back into a frog and Steve Johnson’s dark illustrations makes this story a classic dark comedy.

“The Frog Prince Continued” is full of dark humor and lively characters as they depict the Frog Prince’s attempts at turning back into a frog after a heated argument with his wife, the Princess. The characters that the Prince meets up with are the same characters that have came out of popular children’s books such as, “Hansel and Gretel,” “Cinderella,” and “Snow White.” The witches from each famous fairy tale play a significant role in this story as they at first seem to be the Frog Prince’s only hope in changing back to his normal life as a frog, but later on become a threat to the Frog Prince as they secretly tried to put an end to him because he is a prince. Also, the story is highly creative and funny as the Frog Prince goes through several mishaps to become a frog again but finds out that what he really wanted was to just be with the Princess forever.

Parents should know that this book contains dark illustrations and may be too sophisticated for younger children to understand. Steve Johnson’s illustrations, while they are humorous, are also dark and sometimes scary especially of the images where the Frog Prince goes through a dark forest and since the forest contains creepy-looking trees that have dark shadows around them, it looks like a nightmarish place. The image that will probably scare some young children the most would be the image of the Frog Prince transforming into a frog-like carriage since the carriage has the Prince’s eyes all large and yellow and the Prince’s tongue takes shaped of a seat inside the carriage. The humor of this story may also be aimed at the adults since it displays the theme of a potential divorce between the Frog Prince and the Princess and many young children might not understand about the issues of many couples breaking up because of intense arguments or other difficult situations that couples sometimes do not resolve. Also, the scene where the Frog Prince worries that he will never change back into a prince may upset some young children who may also have fears about losing their parents if they get lost in a place they do not know.

“The Frog Prince Continued” is truly a classic dark comedy about how sometimes marriages do not turn out the way that we want it at first, but we eventually begin to love our loved ones more whenever the thought of losing them tortures us. Jon Scieszka’s and Steve Johnson’s collaborations have made this story an instant hit from Jon Scieszka’s fractured fairy tales collection. Of course, parents may want to read this book first before they read it to their children who are eight years old or younger due to the theme of a potential divorce and the somewhat dark illustrations.

Review is also on: Rabbit Ears Book Blog

The witches are great characters in this book. A fun book to show kids that not all stories that appear to have happy endings actually do. It would be fun to have kids guess which fairy tales the author is referring to while progressing throughout the story and talk about what happened in each.

(Re done to correct my massive spelling errors.)
And they lived happily ever after... The End?
Really, is that what all these books tell you as a child?
Say it ain't so. The princess hates the fact the the prince
keeps sticking his tongue out!
He hates the fact she won't go down to the pond anymore.
He hops on the furniture: it drives her crazy,
He doesn't want to slay anything, like a normal prince
so he continus to annoy her.
She has had it up to her crown finding lily pads in his pockets,
And wishes he still was a frog.
( happily ever after my left foot!)
So off to the woods he hopped, to find a witch to turn him back
His experiences with 3 different witches are enough to deter
even the very bravest of hearts.
But a fairy Godmother changes him into something he really didn't count on,
( this would be a good time for a heart attack I think)
He regrets his decision so much more right now
Thinking, "she really wasn't that bad, and she did love me?
What have I done?"
The clock struck midnight, and he was a prince again.
Running back to the castle all he could think of was,
" she stood by me when no one else woulld, she kissed my froggy lips!"
The Prince kissed the Princess and...... Yes there's still magic in the world
Just not the magic you'd expect! See for yourself.

I am loving these quirky Jon Scieszka books. I must make sure children continue to learn their traditional fairytales so they can get as much out of these intertextual allusions as I have been lucky enough to gain over the last few days.

Unhappy in his marriage, the former frog goes in search of a witch to return him to his amphibious state.

The illustrations are full of clever and humorous details; my favorite is the Nasty Spells remote control.

One of the best books I have read in ages!!!!!!!

This is a fun, quirky book that tells the story after "they lived happily ever after." It has some fun dark twists and a dose of reality for the Frog Prince fairy tale. It's funny and has great, unique illustrations. I like the infusion of the dark humor around traditional fairy tales. But, it also has a nice moral to the story and a cute ending.

Written by Jon Scieszka and illustrated by Steve Johnson, The Frog Prince Continued answers the question what happens after storybook characters live “happily ever after.” After the princess kisses the frog prince to turn him back into a human, they don’t get along. The princess and the prince end up arguing over their different ways of living because the prince is so used to living as a frog. Fed up with this, the prince sets off to find someone to turn him back into a frog. The rest of his journey leads him to numerous villains from different stories leaving him questioning if he really should be running away. I really enjoyed how clever this picturebook was. Although I was wary about the concept because it seems to be overdone in many books, this comical approach to this classic leaves readers still interested until the very end. I really enjoyed how Scieszka added other villains from other stories; this was something that added to the fresh and comical take on the book.

The plot of the picturebook is a very typical plot arc and home-away-home type. This heroic journey shapes the story and makes it impactful to readers. The frog prince leaves his princess because he didn’t think he was happy; however, he ends up going back to her at the end upon realizing that she is the love of his life. The setting of this book is unique because it’s almost its own setting apart from anything else. This grounds the story within the realm of the fantasy books but blends them all together for a different experience for the reader. We see this from all the other villains from other stories that he meets along the way.

Johnson uses color in Scieszka’s story to create a dreamlike and cartoonish feel to the illustrations. This creates the feeling that readers are in the storybook, this fantasy land of all the fantasy stories like Sleeping Beauty and Hansel and Gretel; however, it has a darker twist on these stories. For example, Johnson uses a lot of dark brown and black within the illustrations to create shadows. This gives this darker feeling within these traditional tales. Johnson also uses frames to create this idea that we are reading a story within a story of the traditional tale of the Princess and the Frog. For example, on the first full spread with text and an illustration, the frame around the illustration is rough like the edges of an old book.

This picturebook is fantasy because it involves a change through magic. For example, the frog prince gets changed from a frog to a human, from a human into a carriage, and finally a human back into a frog all through magic.

The Frog Prince Continued written by Jon Scieszka, is a story meant to be a continuation of the popular fairytale known as The Frog Prince. The Frog and Prince Continued reveals in the beginning of this book that if fact the Prince and Princess did not end up living “happily ever after.” The Princess is annoyed of the Prince and his frog like habits. The Prince goes out into the forest to look for a witch to turn him back into a frog so he could then be happy again. He encounters many witches from other fairytales, none of which he trusts to helping him. He soon comes to realize that he misses his Princess and is happiest with her after all.

The images are all dark and mysterious. The depictions found through out the book allow readers to know that this is a fairytale with out even reading the text. Most fairy tales settings are shows as imaginary places with castles referring back to medieval times. The Prince and Princess are shown in a medieval castle with black and white tiled floor, marble/stone finishes, and windows that have castle emblems on them. Nothing is to scale in the castle, the furniture takes over the room as it is visually heavy on the eyes, and walls and floors are all slanted which mimics how the Prince feels about his relationship, which is unstable. As the Prince leaves the castle and goes into the woods he encounters many different witches along the way. One witch in particular lived in a gingerbread house, with M&M on the outside, chocolate planters on the windows, and edible lollipop plants. Which in reality you would never see a building structure be made out of edible materials, except for those found in the fairytales like this one.

This book shows some of the common elements found in Fairytales through the characters and basic story pattern. Like most fairytales the description of the main character is usually some one who is in trouble. In this case the Prince is have relations troubles with his wife. This fairy tale shows a pattern as the Frog Prince goes on asking witch after witch to turn him back in to a frog. Also the images show movement as the illustrations show the frog stepping out of the black boards of some of the images. It looks as if he is going to run right off the picture and onto the white page/ paper. Like most fairytales, the main character live happily ever after and this book does not fail at fitting the part. The Frog Prince and Princess do end up living happily every after.

All is not well in the land of fairy tales – the Frog Prince and his Princess are not living happily ever after! In fact, after a nasty fit by the princess, the Frog Prince decided that maybe it would be better if he were still a frog. He ran off to the forest to look for a witch to place a spell on him and return him to his froggy state. On the way, he meets, but is not helped by, various fairy tale witches – the ones from Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, and Hansel and Gretel; he even meets the fairy godmother from Cinderella who manages to turn him into a carriage. After the clocks strike midnight, he returns to his human form, realizes that the Princess does love him and is better than being a carriage. He returns home to her, they kiss, turn into frogs, and hop off happily ever after.
Being a fan of The Stinky Cheese Man, I looked forward to reading this book, which was new to me. First off, I loved the paintings! The perspective that they were painted from is unusual and causes you to look at them just a bit longer…and notice other details that the artist included. I think children would enjoy flipping through the pages of this book and enjoying the pictures. As for the story, well, I smiled the whole way through and got a nice surprise at the end. I liked that the Frog Prince ran into witches from other fairy tales. I passed the book on to my husband who enjoyed the fact that the characters both turned into frogs at the end – who says we have to be humans to be happy?!

In the “The Frog Prince, Continued” written by Jon Scieszka and illustrated by Steve Johnson, there is a whole new twist on the original tale we all know and love. After the Princess and the frog kiss, he of course turns into a prince and that’s where their original story ends. But after they’ve been together for a while the Princess gets annoyed of the Prince and the way he acts. The Prince isn’t happy either, so he seeks a witch to reverse the spell. This task turns out to be harder than it was the first time around. In this fun twist of a tale the prince and princess turn things around in a positive way hopping from one Lily pad to another together.

The theme in this short story is about loving and accepting someone for who they are. The prince and princess lose sight of this, but gain it back in the end of the story.

This book for me was a after the credits type of book that encloses what happens to the prince and princess after they kiss. This short story has a good morale background to it which is knowing and understanding what love and acceptance is for another person. We are all different in our own ways and even though we might frustrate each other we should always love and accept them for who they are.

I would recommend this book to people who like old tales like this one and who are searching for a post story of the original. This text might be harder for younger age elementary kids , but if was read to them they could enjoy it just as much.

I enjoyed this book very much. Fractured fairytales always seem to interest me because they take a tale that you know well and instead of mocking it like a parody, it twists it into a view you never would have thought of. From the outside cover and the dust jacket, you would think that this book would be more serious because of the chosen font and dark color. However, the one giveaway that this story will not be very serious is that the word "continued" seems to be simple painted underneath the original title "The Frog Prince". However when I opened the book to the end pages, they show dainty little dragonflies and it seemed again like the story would be serious or heartfelt. I love the fact that Scieszka uses the italicized font for the first and last page because it talks about how they lived "happily ever after". The interesting part about those two pages are that they are living two completely different lives; the first is as humans in the castle and the second is as frogs in the pond. I think that gives children a new perspective that you can be happy in many different ways, that the happy ending in a castle isn't the only way to be happy.

This story is meant to continue the well known tale of the frog prince, so as you can image it has a bit of a modern twist. The Frog Prince thinks his life would be happier if he were a frog again but after many bad encounters with witches and fairies from other fairy tales he realizes what a happy life he had after all. The Frog Prince knows his own and other fairytale stories as well as, presumably, his audience know the classic fairytales. The illustrations are a bit gloomy and some of the witches ugly and frightening, but the overall story is rather humorous. I like how many elements are incorporated into the story that relate to the Frog Prince having been once a frog. An example of this includes the illustration of him standing at the doorway of the witch’s cottage were his shadow looks like a frog.

Looking at life after the kiss between the Princess and the Frog Prince.
Life isn't quite as 'happily ever after' as it was cracked up to be and the Frog Prince decides to go and find a witch to turn him back into a frog.
There are some really nice touches and inferences to who the witches are, from other fairy tales (Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Hansel and Gretel) and the Fairy Godmother from Cinderella also puts in an appearance. These connect the book to other tales really well and the story has some good repetition in it, which takes on a different air as the Frog Prince realises that maybe asking a Witch for help wasn't his best idea.
The ending is novel and turns the fairytale convention on it's head somewhat. The only criticism I would have is that it ends very abruptly, however this too mimics fairytale convention so is a very personal grievance!

I can't believe I'd never actually read this book. I've seen it a hundred times and I love fairy tales. Sloane and I were at the library the other day and they had new face-out displays. Of course I took home a pile of storybooks to explore for pleasure and for mini-lesson ideas for next year. Even then I didn't grab this one. Sloane brought it home and I sure am glad she did. HOW FUN!! Plus, I love the fantastic surprise ending.

Lesson Connection
I want to use this one next year during my fairy tale unit to introduce a writing project. I think it would be lots of fun for the kids to write a continuation for their own favorite fairy tale. FUN!

I thought that this was a funny continuation of the classic story of the frog prince. This definitely had me laughing throughout. I loved how the author uses different descriptions of what you would assume a frog did, and made the prince still have those qualities, even though he is no longer a frog. This is just showing the great imagination of Jon Scieszka. He did a great job at showing a humorous way for children to think differently of the great fairy tale. Really loved the creativity and would definitely read this to my class in the future.

I love all of Jon Scieszka's picture books. This one is no exception. Just as the title says this is the tale of the Frog Prince after the "They Lived Happily Ever After. The End" happens. As in all marriages nothing is as "fairy tale" as it seems on the surface. But when the frog prince goes out to explore what else is out there he realizes that he is never going to get anyone better than his wife. A great book to give to every husband!

The Frog Prince and Princess are having trouble getting along at home, so The Frog Prince decides to go on an adventure to turn himself back into a Frog, in the hope that this will make the Princess happy again! On his journey he meets many witches and characters from other fairy tales, which children would enjoy spotting! He even becomes the carriage from Cinderella! Fast-paced, exciting and hilarious... I loved it!

I think this just might be my first five!
I love this book! I love the realistic conflict with having married life not seem so "happily ever after" after all. I love the play on all of the different fairy tales put together. I love using it to encourage students to write their own versions of their favorite traditional stories. In the end, I love the message that it offers it's readers.

Funny story, and fitting, humorous illustrations :-D

Great mood!

Traditional tale with a twist
Lots of speech and dialogue
Moral of not taking things for granted.

I remember this cover and title from my childhood, but I didn’t remember anything about the actual story. This is a humorous sequel to the well known fairy tale about the Frog Prince. In this unofficial sequel, the Frog Prince is having trouble with his princess and decides to search for a witch to make him into a frog again.

He encounters various witches from fairy tales of their own and learns a valuable lesson. As usual with Jon Scieszka books, there is a little twist at the end.

The illustrations were really fun. I especially liked seeing the depictions of the different witches. There was one scene that was so funny I chuckled aloud.

Fun story for children and anyone who likes humorous takes on fairy tales!

Okay, I just read this for my 3rd class and it is the cutest fairytale book I’ve read in a while. Technically, it’s a fractured fairytale, but it was still so good! The characters the frog Prince encountered were easily recognizable and the silly details hidden in the pictures were so genius! So cute, definitely recommend for kids!

Loved it!! Super cute “sequel” to the og fairy tale

Scieszka, J. (1991). The Frog Prince Continued. New York: Viking.

0670834211

Appetizer: The story of the Princess and the Frog Prince continues! It turns out the passion has faded for the royal couple and they're not happily ever after...after all. So, the Frog Prince decides to return to his frog form by asking several witches for help.

The poor Frog Prince--who only vaguely looks like a frog despite his name--has trouble finding a witch that will help him, since the witches don't want him interrupting their plans for Sleeping Beauty, Snow White or any other princesses they mean to harm. (Ugh, why does a witch always have to have it out for a princess? You'd imagine princesses would have done a better job of guarding against the curses of witches.... Don't steal that idea. It's mine!)

Steve Johnson's illustrations are great, dark and humorous. I especially like that, as a human, the prince still looks vaguely frog-like. I thought it was a nice touch. And I know a few weeks ago, I went on and on about how great it was that Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith could work together so well, but could also complete independent projects that were of equal quality. But, I have to admit, it was strange actually reading one of Scieszka's books that wasn't illustrated by Lane Smith. It was kinda like cheating a little....

Dinner Conversation:

"Well, let's just say they lived sort of happily for a long time.
Okay, so they weren't happy.
In fact, they were miserable.
"Stop sticking your tongue out like that," nagged the princess."

"But then he reread his book. And it said right there at the end of his story: "They lived happily ever after. The End." So he stayed in the castle and drove the Princess crazy."

"I can't believe I actually kissed your slimy frog lips. Sometimes I think we would both be better off if you were still a frog."

"I'm the Frog Prince."
"That's funny. You don't look like a frog.
Well, no matter. If you're a prince, you're a prince. And I'll have to cast a nasty spell on you."

To Go with the Meal:

Before sharing The Frog Prince Continued, it is necessary that young readers be familiar with the original story (and several other fairy tales--including Hansel and Gretel, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Cinderella, etc.) . In the U.S. we tend to assume kids will know it, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with doing two read alouds instead of one. Nothing wrong at all. It's even less wrong to share this book before or after seeing Disney's The Princess and the Frog.

After sharing this picture book a teacher could prompt students to write their own continuation of other fairy tales.

On a larger scale, a teacher could use this book to discuss having a sense of belonging in a place or with people. Also, since the Frog Prince and the Princess consider breaking up at the beginning, a teacher could take that initial tension in many different directions, discussion-wise. For example, a teacher could mention how friends should talk out their problems or how sometimes parents just may not belong together anymore or sometimes it's only through everyone making a few sacrifices that they can find a way to work things out. And on and on.

Tasty Rating: !!!

While waiting in the library for my children to find books I spotted a copy of The Frog Prince, Continued by Jon Scieszka sitting on the table. I decided to read the picture book while I waited.

The book as the title implies, is a sequel to the Frog Prince story. The Frog Prince story seems to be coming back in popularity, although by publish date, Scieszka's book is about a decade ahead of the curve.

Here the frog is a human prince, married to a human princess. She nags. They aren't living in the opulence promised at the end of the tale. Their relationship is depicted as being like Ralph and Alice Kramden. The prince wants out of the marriage and wants to be a frog again. He goes out into the forest to find a magical creature who can turn him back. He needs Bombina from For Biddle's Sake by Gail Levine (review coming).

Although the ending is happy I didn't like the book. There was too much emphasis put on the fantasy cameos and not enough thought to the big picture. The gags feel disjointed and the main character is so unlikable that I couldn't get into the story.

At the end of a fairy tale, do the characters truly live happily ever after? Jon Scieszka thinks not.

This is an entertaining take on what happens after the end of the classic fairy tale, The Frog Prince by Jacob Grimm. The narrative has a snarky humor and the ending was a pleasant surprise. The illustrations are nicely detailed and complement the story nicely.

We really enjoyed reading this book together, which is not much of a surprise since we love Jon Scieszka's tales. We will certainly look for more of his books at our local library.

This frog Prince book is the continuation of where all typical fairytale books leave off which is the happily ever after but we never get to see more than that. In this book we get to see how the Frog Prince and the princess actually live after getting married and it is not as perfect as other books portray it to be. The Prince and Princess seem to argue everyday and so the Prince decides to look for the witch to turn him back into the slimy frog the Princess once loved.

I really enjoyed this book because it shows how marriage can sometimes be tough and just because people argue does not mean they do not love each other. I think it can relate to children who are witnessing their parents fighting at home or going through a divorce. The illustrations are humorous,dark, mysterious and sometimes scary. I think it would be appropriate for children older than 8.
#Fairytale #OlderChildren