Review - Arnica the Duck Princess

Arnica the Duck Princess
by Ervin Lázár
illustrated by Jacqueline Molnár
Date: 1981
Publisher: Pushkin Children's Books
Reading level: C
Book type: illustrated chapter book
Pages: 96
Format: e-book
Source: NetGalley

A hilarious classic children’s tale about true love, friendship… and what happens when your fiancé is turned into a duck.

Princess Arnica is so sweet and gentle that when she smiles even wolves and bears forget their fierceness. Everyone loves her, but she loves only Poor Johnny. Luckily, he loves her too, and even more luckily Arnica has a very sensible king for a father, who is happy for her to marry whomever her heart desires. So, no problem then?

Well, maybe just one – The Witch with a Hundred Faces has cast a spell on Arnica and Johnny which means that one of them, at any one time, must always be a duck, and the other human! Only the Seven-Headed Fairy can help them, but will they be able to find her in time?

(synopsis from Goodreads)

This book is about fifty pages too long. What started out as a charming fairy tale eventually turned into a boring slog of a story that left me feeling like I was never going to finish.

I think the best way I can describe this book is that it wants to be The Princess Bride. It features the same device of an adult telling a story to a child, and the child offering commentary and asking questions. But where The Princess Bride can be enjoyed by older readers as well, Arnica the Duck Princess comes across as too young to be enjoyable for adults and too preachy to be enjoyable for kids.

The story starts out as a standard fairy tale, and Poor Johnny (that's his name) falling in love with a princess named Arnica. They run afoul of a witch, who curses Arnica to be a duck. Eventually (I can't remember how this happened, and I'm too lazy to go back and look) the curse is altered so that they can switch back and forth, with one of them being the duck and the other being the person. It's a clever way to have them able to travel for longer periods without resting (since the human could do the walking while the duck slept tucked under their arm), but it seems that poor Arnica usually ended up being the duck. (The book was originally published in 1981, so while I can call out the sexism, I'm not necessarily surprised by it.)

The problems I had came along near the middle of the story when the plot started to go off the rails. First, there's Tig-Tag, the notorious robber (and, apparently, murderer... but he's just called a robber). Now, there's nothing wrong with that sort of character and plot... but it's resolved in the most ridiculous way, with our dynamic duo convincing the robber and his men to form a soccer club so they can get rich. After that, we meet Victor Coppermine, who's looking to be offended by absolutely everything. Personally, I found him a little offensive, as the way he's described implies that he might be black (which makes it seem like the author is saying people of colour are whiny and perpetually offended). I don't really see what the point of some of these characters was, other than to make the story last longer. We're even introduced to characters who sound like they might be interesting (like King Ayahtan Kutarbani), only to have them turn out to be nothing more than scenery.

The illustrations in this edition are not really my thing. The only reason I rated them as highly as I did is because they help to break up the long blocks of text. As I said before, the book really doesn't need to be as long as it is... particularly when so much of the plot feels like filler.

If you really want to read a book that uses the adult-to-child storyteller device, I'd suggest picking up a copy of The Princess Bride by William Goldman instead. Alternately, you might also enjoy Wolf Story by William McCleery. Both of those books are older than Arnica the Duck Princess, but they've held up better over the years.

Thank you to NetGalley and Pushkin Children's Books for providing a digital ARC.

Plot: 2/5
Characters: 2/5
Pace: 2/5
Writing & Editing: 3/5
Illustrations: 3/5
Originality: 2/5

Enjoyment: 2/5

Overall: 2.25 out of 5