Review: The Frog
Realistic illustrations with expressive text are sure to keep children's interest.
What Parents Should Know
Realistic illustrations with expressive text are sure to
keep children's interest.
Common Sense Media Review
One of the
Animals Lives series, this title introduces readers to
the fundamentals of frog life. Children will be fascinated by
hatching tadpoles, the development into froglets, and the list
of predators frogs must avoid. Although this is a nonfiction
book, it is so engaging that it seems, at times, like a
story.
The illustrations are warm and inviting, and show many details, including the splotches of darker brown color and the small bumps on an adult frog's body. One illustration shows the frog's "long, sticky tongue" frozen in motion, just as it has caught a fly.
However, the first of two pages, discussing a frog's croak, shows the male with a very small bulge in his throat. The next page states that "the pouch in his throat puffs up like a tiny balloon ... ." Unfortunately, the artist chose to illustrate this page with the male facing away from the reader. Children will be disappointed not to see the full-blown puff.
Growing Frogs, by Vivian French, tells of a mother and daughter who collect frog eggs from the pond, watch them develop into frogs, and return them to the pond. Wendy Pfeffer's From Tadpole to Frog gives basic facts about the frog's life cycle.
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