Hopkins, Jackie Mims. The Horned Toad Prince. Atlanta, Georgia: Peachtree Publishers, 2000.
When a spunky cow-girl loses her new sombrero down a well, a certain horned toad is more than happy to help her out - for a price. Set in the wild dusty prairie of the American southwest, this story features lasso-loving Reba Jo as the unlikely heroine of a revised Frog Prince tale. In keeping with the locale, the text is sprinkled with Spanish words and phrases in a way that doesn't distract but adds to the strength of the story. The story is illustrated by detailed but stylized (pencil crayon or pastel?) drawings with cartoon-like expressiveness and a playful sense of perspective. Other than the change in setting and character, the plot is remarkably true to the original until the end, when the prince shows he's got a little spunk of his own.
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