PRINCE RIBBIT – a perfectly-timed picture book for the post-truth era?

The cover of Peachtree's US edition.

Prince Ribbit, my latest picture book with illustrator Poly Bernatene has just been published in the US by Peachtree Publishers and has already picked up some good reviews.

It’s the story of a cunning frog who tricks his way into a royal household by convincing two fairytale-obsessed princesses that he's really an enchanted prince who can give them the happily-ever-after they have always dreamed of. Fortunately the two princesses have a non-fiction-loving younger sister, Martha, who sees through the frog’s fakery and sets out to debunk it. The characters use books to back up their arguments, and both sides dismiss each other’s evidence with the refrain, “Just because it’s in a book doesn’t mean it’s true!”.

Some US reviewers have commented that the book’s theme of fact versus fiction – and how to tell the difference between the two is especially relevant at a time when “fake news” is having an increasing influence on public opinion.

While one book is sufficient proof for big sister Arabella, Martha delves deeper in search of the truth.

The January 2017 edition of the School
Library Journal stressed the need for
young readers to think critically.

The lead article in January’s edition of the School Library Journal stressed the need for educators to teach their students to think critically about information they receive, whether it comes from a book, a newspaper or a website. Reviewer Elizabeth Bird makes a similar point at the beginning of her detailed dissection of Prince Ribbit in the same edition.

“Children in the 21st century have to be taught to use their brains when they read. High school curriculum spend a fair amount of time drilling this idea home, but considering how young kids are when they search for information online these days, wouldn’t it behoove them to be taught to think things through from the start? Enter Prince Ribbit, a book that drills home a very simple message: “Just because it’s in a book doesn’t mean it’s true.” Its timing could not be better.”

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, Prince Ribbit’s fact versus fiction theme was inspired by some of the “popular science” books I was reading when I wrote the story in 2013. The laws of libel do not apply to science, so it’s worth bearing in mind that the authors of such books are free to misrepresent scientific evidence in order to appeal to a wider market. This was clearly the case with some of the books I was reading, which gave contradictory accounts of the same evidence. They could not all be right, so how could I find out which books' accounts were closest to the truth?

"Enter Prince Ribbit, a book that drills home a very simple message: 'Just because it’s in a book doesn’t mean it’s true.' Its timing could not be better." Elizabeth Bird School Library Journal

The answer was to delve deeper into the evidence and examine it critically using the methods advocated by campaigns like Ask For Evidence. After doing so I had a clear idea of which books I could rely on and which books I could not.

Although the Ask for Evidence campaign has its roots in the scientific community, the critical thinking approach it promotes is equally applicable to other areas including politics, where policy makers often allow ideology – or just old-fashioned prejudice – to trump the evidence. Fortunately there are organisations that encourage evidence based policy making, such as the Education Endowment Foundation, which does a great job of objectively evaluating evidence relating to education policy. The next time you hear a politician claiming that 'smart school uniforms lead to academic success' or that 'performance related pay will raise teaching standards,' a quick look at the EEF's easy to use ’toolkit” will allow you to assess the current evidence (or lack of it) for such claims.

When I wrote Prince Ribbit four years ago, I had no idea that the story might have a topical relevance by the time it was published. And I did not have a message in mind when I was writing it – I was simply trying to write an entertaining tale. But I’m delighted that it’s seen as promoting critical thinking. With this in mind, I’ll leave the last word to Elizabeth Laird's SLJ review.

“Read carefully. Read critically. Read everything and then form your own opinion from the facts, as best as you can gather them. Or, if you just prefer, read this cute book because it has princesses and talking frogs in it. As far as I can tell, that’s a win-win situation.”

Princess Martha remains unconvinced by the frog's fakery.

Find out more about Prince Ribbit on my web site

Prince Ribbit • New Paperback & Hardback Picture Book

I have a new picture book coming out today in both hardback and paperback!

Prince Ribbit is illustrated by Poly Bernatene and published by Macmillan Children's Books. It's a comical twist on the classic Brothers Grimm fairy tale The Frog Prince.

When a cunning frog claims to be a bewitched prince, fairy-tale-loving princesses
Arabella and Lucinda take him into their home and treat him like royalty.
But fact-loving Princess Martha isn’t so sure;
her non-fiction books tell a different story.

Although Prince Ribbit is the fourth book that illustrator Poly Bernatene and I have created together, it’s effectively a follow-up to the second, The Princess and the Pig. While it’s not a sequel, both books are set in a fairytale world of princes and princesses and both books feature characters who are reading books of fairy tales.

In this new story a cunning frog inveigles his way into a royal household by pretending to be an enchanted prince. Romantically obsessed Princesses Lucinda and Arabella are only too happy to believe Prince Ribbit's story, but their younger sister Princess Martha is more sceptical.

Martha begins the story as an avid non-fiction reader but,
by the end, she's a fan of fiction as well.

Although fiction versus non-fiction is now a prominent theme of the story, there were no non-fiction books in the first few drafts. The only book that was referenced was Lucinda and Arabella's favourite fairy tale The Frog Prince, which provides Prince Ribbit with the inspiration for his cunning plan. In these earlier drafts, Martha succeeded in foiling Ribbit using nothing but her own reasoning and the story ended at an earlier point.

While I was fairly happy with this early version, Emily Ford, my editor at Macmillan, felt that the ending could be stronger and that the whole story was not as satisfying as the other ones I’d written for Poly to illustrate – and she was right! However it took me a while to find a way to achieve this and come up with a new draft that fitted the bill.

In the story, reading fiction helps Martha to find a solution to her problem; reading non-fiction helped me to find a solution to mine. At that time I was reading a lot of "popular science" books. It may surprise you to learn that libel laws do not apply to science and authors can misrepresent a scientist’s work with impunity. There are good reasons for this exemption, but it means that the label of “non-fiction” should not always be taken literally when it comes to scientific literature, particularly popular science books which can sometimes misrepresent evidence in order to appeal to a wider market. After digging a little deeper into the evidence, I discovered that some of the books I was reading at that time were doing exactly that and I often had to remind myself that, “Just because it’s in a book, it doesn’t mean it’s true!”. This phrase inspired the fiction versus non-fiction theme in the later drafts of Prince Ribbit and became a refrain within the story.

It was felt that this first version of the diagram of a frog's life cycle
 provided a little ‘too much information’ for younger readers so
the copulation stage was omitted from the final illustration.

While I loved the idea of playing off fiction against non-fiction, I didn’t want to show one type of book winning over the other – they’re both of equal value — so in the end Martha learns to appreciate both before foiling Prince Ribbit’s plan.

As always Poly has done a terrific job of illustrating the book, creating a cast of engaging characters in beautifully rendered settings. I particularly like the way that the illustrations in the books the characters are reading are drawn in a different style to the rest of the illustrations. Poly’s precisely detailed diagram of the life cycle of a frog would not look out of place in a real reference book, although Macmillan felt that his first version provided a little ‘too much information’ for younger readers (see image opposite).

When I first saw Poly’s roughs for the book I wasn’t keen on the car spread (shown below) and suggested that it would be better if the illustration show the royal tailors and jewellers attending Ribbit inside the palace. However Poly was reluctant to change it and — having now seen the finished illustration — I’m glad that he got his way, as it’s now my favourite spread in the book. I love the blue-yellow colour palette that Poly has used for this illustration, with the golden glow of the tailor’s shop spilling out into the half-light of the crowded street.

Here's a trailer I made for the book.

You can download and print out activity sheets for the book by clicking on their images below.

Word Search

Board Game

Prince Ribbit • Asfordby Captain's Close Edition

Prince Ribbit illustrated by Captain’s Close School and Poly Bernatene Illustrated edition.

Regular readers of this blog may remember the post I wrote last year about a special edition of The Silver Serpent Cup illustrated by the children of Round Hill Primary School in Nottingham. Last month I ran a similar week-long project with my Patron of Reading school, Asfordby Captain’s Close Primary in Leicestershire.

At the beginning of the week, the children were given the text of Prince Ribbit, a picture book that will be published my Macmillan at the end of next week. The Macmillan edition is illustrated by Poly Bernatene, but the purpose of the project was to encourage the children to interpret the text for themselves and come up with their own illustration ideas, so the children were not shown any of Poly’s artwork until they had finished their own.

After introducing the story to the whole school and giving them a few top tips for illustration and page design, I spent a little time with each class to get them started. One of the main characters in the story is a frog, so I did some “How to draw a frog” sessions with Years 1, 2 and 3.

Then I spent some time thinking about characters and settings with Years 4, 5, & 6. I explained that there is no right way to illustrate a scene, but some ways might be better than others, so it’s always a good idea to consider alternative approaches before you start. As an example, we took one of Poly Bernatene’s illustrations for The Princess and the Pig and the children came up with lots of alternative "thumbnail" ideas to present the same scene to the reader.

Some of the children's alternative ideas for one of Poly's spreads from The Princess and the Pig

Each class then set about creating their own edition of the book, with each spread being illustrated by a different pupil. When they had finished, each teacher selected a complete set of illustrations from their class to make up six separate class editions of the book.

The covers designs for the six class editions.

There was some wonderful artwork in every edition. I could see that a lot of thought and imagination had gone into the character and spread designs and there was some imaginative use of typesetting from the older classes.

The Robins Class edition

I chose two or three pages from each of the class editions which I bound together to make an overall school edition of the book. I had a very hard time choosing just seventeen spreads for this and there were lots of excellent illustrations that I had to leave out.

Here are some of the spreads that I chose.

This front cover by Alex is very eye-catching and Ribbit has a slightly cunning look to him which is perfect for the story.
The back cover by Grace has some very engaging blurb and the Royal Library card is a great idea.

Prince Ribbit is a story about books and I really liked the way that George gives the reader a good look at the book Martha is reading on this spread.

This spread by Ona-Mae is very professional-looking, with some great character designs and expressive faces.

We finished off the week with a special assembly on Friday afternoon. After revealing the illustrations I’d chosen for the school edition, I showed the children the published edition so that they could see how Poly Bernatene had tackled each of the spreads they'd been working on.

Me showing the children Poly's illustrations for the book

I’d explained at the beginning of the week that we would choose one favourite spread from the school edition, the illustrator of which would receive a signed copy of the Poly Bernatene illustrated edition. As the illustrator, Poly was much better qualified to make this decision than I was, so I emailed him a pdf version of the school edition and he sent back a video in which he announced the winning illustrator …

Illustrator Poly Bernatene sent us a video to announce his favourite illustration from the school edition.

… which was Scarlett from Robins Class who produced this wonderful illustration showing Princess Martha in the Royal Library.

Poly chose this spread by Scarlett as his favourite 

The project was a very effective way for the children to learn a little about the ins and outs of book design and illustration and gave them a new appreciation of all the thought and hard work that goes into turning a text into a finished book.

I’d like to say a big THANK YOU to all the young illustrators, their teachers and TAs and Literacy Co-ordinator Miss G, who did such a brilliant job of co-ordinating the project in the school.

Me with the 17 illustrators of the school edition

---

Prince Ribbit is published on Thursday 28 July 2016 by Macmillan Children's Books.

Click here to find out more about the book

A sneak peek at PRINCE RIBBIT, my next picture book with Poly Bernatene

It's not out until next summer, but here's a sneak peek at the next picture book I've created with Argentinian illustrator extraordinaire Poly Bernatene and Macmillan Children's Books.

Poly and I have done three books together so far: The Santa Trap, The Princess and the Pig and Here Be Monsters. 

Our fourth book is called … (drum roll please) …

Although it's not a sequel, it's sure to appeal to fans of The Princess and the Pig as it's another fractured fairy-tale with lots of bookish characters.

The main characters are:- independently-minded, non-fiction-loving Princess Martha …

… her romance-obsessed, fiction-loving older sisters Arabella and Lucinda …

… and a cunning little frog who calls himself Prince Ribbit.

Poly has created another set of stunning illustrations for the book. Here's one of my favourite spreads.

That's all I'll tell you for now, but the word cloud below (created using the text of the book) might give you some more clues as to what the story is about.

Prince Ribbit will be published
in the UK by Macmillan Children's Books on 28 July 2016
and in the US by Peachtree Publishers (date to be announced)