Jostein Gaarder 
Frog Castle 

The magical adventures of a small boy who helps a frog turn back into a prince, and is rewarded with a visit to the Frog Castle. Here, in an Alice-in-Wonderland story where dreams and reality are intertwined and time is turned on its head, he meets a little princess called Aurora, a wicked lord chamberlain, a bold queen and a kind king whose heart is stolen away. In THE FROG CASTLE nothing is quite what it seems. As in all Gaarder stories, there is more to this than meets the eye: the subtext is a gentle exploration of birth and death, and a child learning to comprehend the loss of his beloved grandfather. Characterized by the charm and innocence that so many readers loved in HELLO? IS ANYBODY THERE?, THE FROG CASTLE confirms Jostein Gaarder as a wonderful storyteller whose special gift is to open children’s eyes to the great mysteries.