Dragon Kiss (Tales of the Frog Princess)
Grade 3–5—Baker has lost momentum sinceThe Frog Princess(Bloomsbury, 2003), the first book in the series. This installment revolves around the dragon Audun, who wants to become a human so that he can woo Millie, his sweetheart from the previous book—a human who can turn into a dragon. It seems that each of their families harbors prejudices against the other life-form. To gain the knowledge he desires, he must undertake a series of quests for the dragons of his own kingdom: fetching the fertile egg of a desert-dwelling bird, exchanging it for a flute that's held by a sea witch, and so on. The quests seem never-ending, and become tedious and regrettably predictable. An evil sorcerer, spied in passing early on, comes in view again and again, until he is revealed to be Audun's most formidable antagonist. Of course, every good deed the dragon performs, no matter how inadvertent, influences his progress toward his goal. All ends happily, with a dragon kiss, if readers care enough to read that far.—Miriam Lang Budin, Chappaqua Public Library, NYCopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.