Review: The Hop by Sharelle Byars Moranville (ARC)

The Hop. by Sharelle Byars Moranville. March 20, 2012. Disney-Hyperion. 288 pages. ISBN: 9781423137368

The Hop is a forthcoming middle grade novel that retells the story of the Princess and the Frog (and/or The Frog Prince) from the points of view of a toad and a young girl named Taylor. Tad the toad is troubled because for the first time in his life, he has had a dream during his hibernation, which foretells danger for his home in Toadville-by-Tumbledown. Taylor, too, is burdened by worries. Her grandmother is fighting cancer, and the lake and land surrounding her grandmother's house have been sold to developers, who plan to fill in the lake and pave it over. Neither character knows it, but their fates are intertwined. Tad's home is near the very lake Taylor fights to save, and in order to save his fellow toads, Tad must be kissed by a human girl.

The story starts out really strong, with a lot of great description of the world of toads, and some great backstory on Taylor and her family. It's clear to the reader almost immediately how the two main characters' paths will intersect, and it's fun to see the characters figure it out as well. I did find that the story unravels somewhat as it goes on. The trip to Reno, though important for Taylor's understanding of her straitlaced parents' more relaxed sides, seems random, and maybe not necessary to the overall plot. Once the fantasy element is introduced, after that inevitable kiss, things speed up so much that the end of the story feels very rushed and almost unfinished. The book has a really nice, leisurely pace at the start, but really sprints toward the final page, leaving me feeling somewhat unsatisfied.

This criticism doesn't mean I didn't enjoy the book, though. The tone of the story is great, and I love the author's style. I am not always into fairy tale retellings, but this one has a nice contemporary spin on it, and makes things really interesting by incorporating the toad point of view. I really wished for more from the story, because I didn't get a real sense of how things turned out for Tad, whose psychic powers are only briefly explored, or of how the magic in the story was meant to work. I realize this might be a convention of the fairy tale genre, where magic doesn't always have an explanation, but just exists, naturally, like everything else, but it did bug me. Still, though, the fact that I was left wanting more is a compliment to the author, whose writing hooked me and got me interested.

Recommend this book to budding activists with a strong interest in environmental issues, as well as those girls who like fairy tales, but aren't crazy about princesses and damsels in distress. The Hop will be published on March 20, 2012, just in time for Spring!

I received a digital ARC of The Hop from Disney-Hyperion via NetGalley.

For more about this book, visit Goodreads and Worldcat.