The Golden Ball by Katelyn Sinclair Review

The poetry that tells the story of a young princess in “The Golden Ball” was beautifully written with a nice rhythm. Katelyn Sinclair teaches some beautiful lessons in her rhyming, retelling of “The Princess and the Frog.” In my personal opinion, the most important lesson taught is keeping your promises, even though you may not want to. Another part I did like was that the dad calls the princess out on being a snobby brat and holds her to what she promises. The king makes sure that she treats the frog with respect even if it means popping in on her unannounced. One aspect that did bother me was the fact that the princess decides to be the frog’s friend only when she finds out he is actually a prince. I have a feeling it was done for rhyming sake, but it did irk me. I felt it taught the lesson of being vain and only liking people for their outward appearance. She ends up becoming friends with the prince, playing together, eventually getting married, and living happily ever after. It just bothered me so much that she could not learn to like him for his inward self until after he became a human and handsome.

One thing that did surprise me was, even though the book looks super short, it has a lot of meat to it. I really enjoyed that. The age range listed for this book is 3-7 years old which I think is perfect. I enjoyed the illustrations a lot as well. Some of them looked like mixed media art that was scanned to make it 2D (especially the castle illustrations.) There were nice details in the illustrations without them being overdone but they are not super simple. I love the perfect balance. I know Sinclair has a few other stories and I hope I get an opportunity to read them and share them with my family in the future.

I received this book through a giveaway on Goodreads. All opinions are completely my own.