I first read this book 13 years ago and was trying to figure out why it stuck with me.

Dakin is describe as brown skinned at least twice. Love that. But the images depict her as a white girl so 👎🏾👎🏾👎🏾

It's such a fun nice sweet story I love girls going on adventures and fixing their towns but also I love that miss thing has an attitude like purr don't put up with anyone's shit queen!

I always remembered the frog and Dakin got together at the end. I always remembered Dakin was soecifucally 14, and I remember the frog was a full grown adult. I was like, "There's no way they paired a 14 year old with a MAN. There's just no way." Unfortunately there is a way. And I would say maybe it's just a product of the author's time, maybe when the book was written in- THE 60S?!?!?!?!! How often did they have child brides back then?!

And what made it worse, this grown 22 year old M A N sees baby girl Dakin again and goes "I'm such an idiot 🥺 I wish I could marry 🥺 someone like you 🥺🥺 but you wouldn't marry a foolish dum dum like me 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺" And Dakin, THE BABY THE BABY GIRL INFANT CHILD, of course she says yes! Because she's a child and he's A MAN. NOT JUST A 22 YEAR OLD MAN, A TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY TWO YEAR OLD MAN (222)!!!!! You've been imprisoned for 200 years and your first thought is "I gotta marry that 14 year old girl?" Lock his ass up AGAIN. He's the real villain here!

Last thing, I love her name maybe that's why I latched onto this book, maybe I remembered the brown skin detail and saw her name and went "That's a black queen right there!" Her sister's name being Triska? You're helping my case.