Reviews

Once Upon a Toad by Heather Vogel Frederick

sallyavena's review

2.0

A book I pre-read before my 10 year old daughter. Not really that engaging, but cute idea. Not too teeny-bopperish, so good for a 10 year old. Just didn't have a thick enough plot for me. My 10 year old thought it was a cute book though.

lacucharita's review

4.0

farie funny (bad pun Ha Ha)

katezz12's review

5.0

This was an awesome book!! It had a wonderful plot line!! I thought it was going to be so predictable but it had so many twists and turns that i couldn't make easy predictions! Loved IT

nisanre's review

3.0

This was a cute modernized adaptation of a fun fairy tale. Definitely one I would hand students who are interested in that sort of thing. A little too... light for my tastes.

kelli7990's review against another edition

adventurous lighthearted relaxing fast-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

Here’s what this is about:”Once upon a time, Cat Starr lived with her astronaut mom in Houston. But when her mother gets sent on a long-term mission, Cat has to move to a faraway land—her dad’s house, halfway across the country—and share a room with her real-life evil stepsister, Olivia. Just when Cat can’t take it anymore, Great Aunt Abyssinia comes to the rescue. And things go from bad to cursed. The next morning, Cat opens her mouth and a toad hops out! What’s more, when Olivia speaks, diamonds and flowers appear. How unfair is that? Before you can say "happily ever after," the girls are on the run from jewel thieves and a government agency. Can Cat save the day—and get rid of all those toads?”

I listened to this book on Libby. I really enjoyed this book and I liked how this book ended. This was a fun, lighthearted read and it’s easy to understand what’s going on in the story. I didn’t ever get confused about what was going on. I liked the fairytale aspect of this because I like fairytales and I like that Houston was mentioned because I live in Houston. There wasn’t anything that I disliked. I would recommend if you like fairytales and if you want a fun, lighthearted book to read that’s easy to understand. I also think this would be perfect for adults, little girls and teenage girls to read too. I will be reading more books from this author.

mrsalane's review

3.0

This was a cute modernized adaptation of a fun fairy tale. Definitely one I would hand students who are interested in that sort of thing. A little too... light for my tastes.

awesome_person10's review

5.0

This was such an amazing book!
It was so entertaining.
It was an cleaver twist of fiction, reality, and fantasy.
I would definitely recommend this book, it would be good for a read-aloud.

maidmarianlib's review against another edition

2.0

Sweet and simple story based on a fairy tale, the progression of the characters though is only loosely related to the events and some are just to hard to believe (such as the introduction of an Elvis impersonator)

csd17's review

2.0

I hoped that it would be like Janette Rallison's books. But no. Average.

satyridae's review

4.0

I really enjoyed this over-the-top reworking of an old fairy tale. I found the characters fun and believable, the set-up enjoyable, and the payoff delightful. I loved that it's set in my town, and I dug the Great Aunt a lot. There's a tiny Betsy-Tacy nod embedded in this book, and it made me laugh out loud. I would have loved this even more had I read it at age 9 or so.

Frederick has a sure hand with snappy dialogue, and her middle-schoolers are very true to life.

Disclosure: I'm friends with Frederick in real life.