THE FROG BRIDE

This sumptuous version of a traditional Russian story holds within it fragments of other fairy tales familiar to American readers. A king tells his three sons each to shoot an arrow in the air “and seek your bride where the arrow falls.” The youngest, Ivan, shoots his into the marshlands, where it lands near a “very small, very ugly frog.” The queen puts three tasks to the frog and the two women the older boys find, and the frog performs them best. One night the prince sees her climb out of her froggy skin (the pictures of this are marvelous and entirely unrevealing) to do the work in beauteous human form. Hoping to fix her in human form, the prince burns the frog skin, but she flees instead to her grandmother Baba Yaga. Can Ivan win her back? Lee’s oils in her picture-book debut are richly colored and finely designed, with swoops and curves and glorious patterns. The text is clear and rhythmic, and the images draw the eye again and again. (Picture book/fairy tale. 6-9)