Frankly, I Never Wanted to Kiss Anybody! The Story of the Frog Prince

Frankly, I Never Wanted to Kiss Anybody!: The Story of the Frog Prince as Told by the Frog (The Other Side of the Story)is a funny retelling of the Frog Prince story told from the Frog's point of view.

In this version the Prince was not punished for being selfish or spoiled. Instead he was a star baseball player who is turned into a frog to prevent him from winning a baseball game. He doesn't mind life as a frog too much, but he does miss playing baseball. Eventually he decides he is willing to return to his old life, but finding a princess is a challenge.

Based on the baseball theme, you might have a hint where the ball part of the original tale might come in to the retold tale. The princess is also a baseball player, a pitcher and her lucky ball is lost in the well. As per the original tale she fails to live up to their agreement and the frog must go to court to enforce the contract. The couple finds a future in baseball together when the contract finally is enforced and the prince returns to his original form.

Snow White Was So Forgetful!

Seriously, Snow White Was SO Forgetful!: The Story of Snow White as Told by the Dwarves (The Other Side of the Story) is a retelling of the Snow White story from the dwarves' perspective. This story is different from the other series of the Other Side of the Story books in a couple of ways. First this book only has the alternate fairy tale, it doesn't include the original story for students to compare and contrast. Secondly, the narrator of the story is a friend, not someone who was in conflict with the character as is generally the case in most of the Other tales. The tales are generally written to give you the evil character's perspective on what happened. In this case that presents a little bit of a weakness for the story. The dwarves had no conflict with Snow White. They just found her forgetful and that created problems for her.

In order to get around the issue of not telling the story from the Evil Queen's perspective or for that matter the Prince's story which would also might provided more material for an alternate fairy tale, the author focuses on making Snow White into a hopeless figure who can't get out of her own way. To insure nobody assumes this is based on sexism, the Prince is equally forgetful and thus a match made.

On the plus side, this version strays from the Disney version back to the traditional Grimm's tale with the multiple visits from the Evil Queen attempting to kill Snow White. It also leaves out true love's kiss for the version where the apple is displaced when the coffin is dropped.

I think the author was shooting for the humor of some of the earlier series, but failed. Instead this seemed like a petty attack on Snow White.