No place for magic

Gr 4-6-This latest installment in the series continues with the travails of Emma as she tries to marry Prince Eadric. The young couple must go to meet his parents in Upper Montevista in order to obtain their consent. This is not a slam-dunk as Emma is a witch and Eadric's mother is not too keen on the use of magic. In fact, she won't even allow Emma to use it to help rescue her younger son, Bardston, who has been kidnapped by trolls. Unfortunately, that is about the extent of the plot; the rest is just window dressing, and not very interesting dressing at that. The story plods along as Emma and Eadric make their journey, but nothing much really happens. Things pick up once the search for Bardston begins. Emma is able to see that the man she loves is more than she thought he was, and his parents see that there is more to Emma than they believed. There certainly is no lack of humor, and kids will get a kick out of the hip "Shrek" vibe that Baker creates in this updated fairy tale. The attitudes are contemporary, but attitude alone doesn't make a compelling story. This one is for libraries in which the earlier books are popular.-Tim Wadham, Maricopa County Library District, Phoenix, AZ (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Four volumes into the Frog Princess series the principals finally get hitched, though not before encounters with deadly werewolves and cockatrices, a genteel banshee, a baby dragon, vampires and a host of other magical creatures--capped by an army of invulnerable trolls led by a four-headed queen with a yen for matrimony herself. Complicated by Princess Emeralda's attempts to please her magic-hating mother and stepmother-to-be by sticking to mundane methods rather than using spells, the plot winds its leisurely way through adventures and misadventures toward a goopily romantic "I do," followed immediately by a wild battle as the aforementioned trolls attack. As before, hunky Prince Eadric's dedicated focus on food and fighting is leavened by just enough good sense to keep him from becoming a complete caricature, and capable Emeralda repeatedly snatches the fat from the fire thanks to quick wit and strong magic--not to mention a pair of cute/obnoxious talking-animal sidekicks. Another amiable, though, at this point, decidedly formulaic, episode. (Fantasy. 11-13) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.