Jane doesn’t believe in talking frogs. “Unfortunate,” says the frog whom she finds in her pocket where a dime–Jane’s muffin money–used to be. The dime is now the frog’s hat. Jane doesn’t believe in fairy tales, either. But the frog has a fondness for one in particular, about a stable girl and young prince whose love is thwarted by a potion that takes away the stable girl’s imagination and memory and turns the prince into a frog. “If you think I’m going to kiss an amphibian, a slimy green frog, and forget about my muffin money– ” Jane warns the frog as she listens to the story. This spirited fractured fairy tale features fine comic banter between two strong-willed characters, one stubbornly single-minded, the other persistently carefree. There is a twist at the penultimate moment before the tale slides playfully to its expected but wholly satisfying conclusion. Illustrations done in pen-and-ink and watercolor capture an old-fashioned fairy tale setting and mood while capitalizing on the humor of the text and the quirks of the characters’ personalities in this pleasingly skewed tale. (Ages 6-9)

When Jane sets off for the bakery to buy a muffin one morning, in her pocket she finds an enchanted frog wearing her dime for a hat.