A shy girl and a smiling frog
Pipa:m̓: The Touch of the Frog
by Joseph Dandurand (illustrated by Elinor Atkins)
Gibsons: Nightwood Editions, 2026
$15.95 / 9780889715004
Reviewed by Brett Josef Grubisic
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Frog song during spring, Joseph Dandurand says, was an inspiration for his latest children’s book, which follows A Magical Sturgeon and The Girl Who Loved the Birds.
The author was also influenced by memories of “The Frog Prince,” by the Brothers Grimm. “I had this image of a young Kwantlen girl who was a little small and not as fast as the other kids… Kwantlen means ‘the tireless runners.’ The idea [was] of her needing an advantage and then coming across this frog and touching it and then basically transforming into someone who can run now and is a part of the games,” Dandurand explains, “I had this idea of, ‘Okay, maybe the frog is magical.’ The young girl brings it back to the village and allows all the sick people to touch it. And they’re healed.”
(First published in 1812, “The Frog Prince; or, Iron Henry” is an odd little fable. Reading it for the first time this week, I was struck by the fable’s murky messaging and saw it as, perhaps, one of Jacob and Wilhelm’s lesser efforts.
Plus, there’s incredible variety from one translation to the next. Edgar Taylor and Marian Edwardes’ English language version begins with, “One fine evening a young princess put on her bonnet and clogs…,” while D. L. Ashliman’s translation has this opening sentence: “In olden times, when wishing still did some good, there lived a king whose daughters were all beautiful, but the youngest was so beautiful that the sun itself, who, indeed, has seen so much, marvelled every time it shone upon her face.”
The pivotal scene in the former has a standard happy ending:
And when the princess opened the door the frog came in, and slept upon her pillow as before, till the morning broke. And the third night he did the same.
But when the princess awoke on the following morning she was astonished to see, instead of the frog, a handsome prince, gazing on her with the most beautiful eyes she had ever seen, and standing at the head of her bed.
He told her that he had been enchanted by a spiteful fairy, who had changed him into a frog; and that he had been fated so to abide till some princess should take him out of the spring, and let him eat from her plate, and sleep upon her bed for three nights. “You,” said the prince, “have broken his cruel charm, and now I have nothing to wish for but that you should go with me into my father’s kingdom, where I will marry you, and love you as long as you live.”
Ashliman depicts a scene with a different tone altogether:
The princess began to cry and was afraid of the cold frog and did not dare to even touch him, and yet he was supposed to sleep in her beautiful, clean bed.
The king became angry and said, “You should not despise someone who has helped you in time of need.”
She picked him up with two fingers, carried him upstairs, and set him in a corner. As she was lying in bed, he came creeping up to her and said, “I am tired, and I want to sleep as well as you do. Pick me up or I’ll tell your father.”
With that she became bitterly angry and threw him against the wall with all her might. “Now you will have your peace, you disgusting frog!”
But when he fell down, he was not a frog, but a prince with beautiful friendly eyes. And he was now, according to her father’s will, her dear companion and husband. He told her how he had been enchanted by a wicked witch, and that she alone could have rescued him from the well, and that tomorrow they would go together to his kingdom. Then they fell asleep.”
Later, Iron Henry, the prince’s loyal servant, shows up and seems to have a far stronger relationship with him than the princess ever will.
Who knows which translation Dandurand heard, or what he remembers about a fable he heard decades earlier?)
Illustrator Elinor Atkins swathes the first few pages of Pipa:m̓: The Touch of the Frog in shades of orange, red, and sky blue.
Dandurand starts with community. It’s “a nice spring morning” and Kwantlen community members are readying for the year’s first fish expedition. Fires are lit, nets are mended.
Though trying her best, young Tsa’kwi’ah is aware of her diminutive stature; as other children play and play, she watches. The widespread joy of the scenes does not touch her. She later wanders lonely as a proverbial cloud, spies a green frog, touches it, and changes—she grow tall and strong and “tireless as she ran and ran.”
Months pass, and a febrile illness descends on the community. Retrieving the smiling frog, Tsa’kwi’ah heals the villagers one at a time.
“This happened one hundred years ago,” Dandurand writes, connecting the never-never land of the preceding tale with the here and now. “Today, the Kwantlen are still here in the same village and still gather for the First Fish Ceremony held every spring. They have a feast and then bring the bones of the first fish back to the river. This has been done for thousands of years.”
Touching on the smallpox outbreak that began to devastate Indigenous populations in the early 1600s, Dandurand’s tale emphasizes the transformative magic of nature (in the form of a frog) and the quick thinking of Tsa’kwi’ah and her community-mindedness.
In stark contrast to the princess of “The Frog Prince; or, Iron Henry” Dandurand’s protagonist is not defined by an otherworldly beauty nor a vain princess-y petulance.
Tsa’kwi’ah sees harm, knows a way to stop it, and takes action. Her specialness, then, is unrelated to social stature or a beauty that could make Helen of Troy envious.
She’s caring, thoughtful, and capable—a conscientious team player rather than a prima donna.
Specialness comes in all shapes and sizes, of course, and Dandurand’s book celebrates an ordinary-seeming girl who stumbles upon a fortune and willingly—and widely—shares the life-preserving ‘wealth’ it provides.
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Brett Josef Grubisic lives near a pond with a deafening though pleasant frog chorus. He assigns, edits, and posts fiction, poetry, and children’s lit reviews for BCR; occasionally, he contributes reviews as well. [He’s written about recent books by Cathalynn Cindy Labonté-Smith, Susannah M. Smith, Théodora Armstrong, Faith Erin Hicks, Hetxw’ms Gyetxw, Nathan Fairbairn, Otoniya Bitek, Martin Butler, Hannah Beach and Maggie Hutchings, Zsuzsi Gartner (ed.), Jennifer Cooper, Caroline Adderson, Sunny Dhillon, Wanda John-Kehewin, Ryan O’Dowd, Michael V. Smith, David Bouchard, Alice Turski, Louise Sidley, K.J. Denny (ed.), Sonali Zohra, Carrie Anne Vanderhoop, Kristen Pendreigh, Sam Wiebe, Maureen Young, Daniel Anctil, and Adam Welch for BCR.]
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The British Columbia Review
Interim Editors: Trevor Marc Hughes (nonfiction), Brett Josef Grubisic (fiction and poetry)
Publisher: Richard Mackie
Formerly The Ormsby Review, The British Columbia Review is an online book review and journal service for BC writers and readers. The Advisory Board now consists of Jean Barman, Wade Davis, Robin Fisher, Barry Gough, Hugh Johnston, Kathy Mezei, Patricia Roy, and Graeme Wynn. Provincial Government Patron (since September 2018): Creative BC. Honorary Patron: Yosef Wosk. Scholarly Patron: SFU Graduate Liberal Studies. The British Columbia Review was founded in 2016 by Richard Mackie and Alan Twigg.
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