Originally published in 1989, Frog in Love was the first of 17 books to have been published in this classic character series. Taking the very grown-up theme of romance and presenting it on a level that children can appreciate is quite an ambitious endeavour, but this gentle and touching tale manages to pull it off with grace and sincerity.
At first Frog thinks the thumping in his chest must be an illness, until Hare diagnoses him as being in love. Anxiety turns to elation as Frog proclaims the object of his desire to be a beautiful white duck, and then back to anxiety again as he is too shy to tell her his feelings. But despite Pig’s reservations about the feasibility of an inter-species relationship (slight political undertones perhaps?), Frog finally gets Duck’s attention by showing off and doing the biggest jump EVER.
For such a simplistic character who really bears little anatomical resemblance to an amphibian, Frog is unfalteringly lovable and bursting with personality. Let’s hope that the re-release, with its more contemporary cover design, will keep Frog bouncing through the generations into the hearts of children for years to come.
At first Frog thinks the thumping in his chest must be an illness, until Hare diagnoses him as being in love. Anxiety turns to elation as Frog proclaims the object of his desire to be a beautiful white duck, and then back to anxiety again as he is too shy to tell her his feelings. But despite Pig’s reservations about the feasibility of an inter-species relationship (slight political undertones perhaps?), Frog finally gets Duck’s attention by showing off and doing the biggest jump EVER.
For such a simplistic character who really bears little anatomical resemblance to an amphibian, Frog is unfalteringly lovable and bursting with personality. Let’s hope that the re-release, with its more contemporary cover design, will keep Frog bouncing through the generations into the hearts of children for years to come.
1 comment:
Being a bilingual household with Dutch and English we have a lot of Frog (or Kikker as he is known in Dutch) books on our shelves. Velthuijs won the top Dutch kids book prize in 1992 for one of his Frog/Kikker books (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gouden_Griffel). One thing that I appreciate at the moment is that the stories hold the attention of both my 5 year old and my 1 year old!
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