“ONCE, IN OLDEN TIMES, when wishes still had power, there lived a king. All of his daughters were beautiful, but the youngest was the loveliest of all. The sun itself, which sees so much, was dazzled when its light shone on her face.”

Thus begins The Frog Prince, the classic fairy tale, best known in the version set down by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. When a young princess meets a frog after she drops her favorite toy into a well, she thoughtlessly makes a promise to love him if he retrieves it. But once the frog fetches her toy, she runs away—until the king insists that she keeps her word. Frightened and repulsed by the frog, she is forced to let him share her meal and must then let him share her room.

About The Author

Brothers Grimm

Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were born in 1785 and 1786 near Frankfurt, Germany. In their early twenties, they began the linguistic studies that would culminate in their collected editions of folk- and fairy tales. They got their stories from peasants and villagers, and sometimes from already-published works from other cultures. Jacob did much of the research; Wilhelm put the stories into literary form.

About The Illustrator

Binette Schroeder

BINETTE SCHROEDER (1939-2022) was born in Hamburg, Germany. After studying graphic design at a private school in Munich, Germany, she studied at the university for design in Basel, Switzerland. Flora’s Magic House, her debut, was an artistic breakthrough. Some of her other books include: Mr. Gray and Frieda Frolic, Binette Schroeder’s Well of Stories, and The Frog Prince. Her oeuvre was awarded the Special Prize of the German Youth Literature Prize in 1997, and in 2004 the Grand Prize of the Academy for Children and Adolescent Literature, Volkach, Germany. Binette Schroeder lived in Munich with her husband, Peter Nickl, a children’s book author and a lawyer.