The Bird, the Frog, and the Light: A Fable

AVI

ISBN 10: 0531086585 / ISBN 13: 9780531086582

Published by Orchard Books, 1994

About this Item

Small scuff on ft. board upper corner, mild scuffed tips, mild edgewear on spine. Fine interior, pages clean and tight.

Seller Inventory # 10087

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Bird, the Frog, and the Light: A Fable
• Publisher: Orchard Books
• Publication Date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0531086585
• ISBN 13: 9780531086582
• Binding: Cloth
• Illustrator: Henry, Matthew
• Condition: Very Good +
• Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket
• Weight: 10 ounces
• Seller catalogs:
  • Children

About this title

Synopsis

A frog learns the truth about his self-importance when he meets a bird whose simple song brings the sun's light to the world.

From Publishers Weekly

A pretty bird opens each day by singing: although her song is "nothing very special," it nonetheless causes the sun to beam. This bucolic routine is interrupted one day by a pompous, bossy frog, who leads the bird to his underground kingdom and directs her to the many signs of his greatness--marble palace, ancient throne, massive army. Because his kingdom is pitch black, these things can be only felt, not seen. At the frog's insistence, the bird illuminates the underworld with a ray from her friend the sun, revealing the "kingdom" to be no more than a collection of dingy leavings--a stone, a box, a tin can--and forcing the frog, however grudgingly, to renounce his grandiosity. Avi's dry wit leads to a pungent telling, with lessons about the power and pitfalls of delusion kept humorous and light. In an impressive picture-book debut, Henry adds finely textured paintings that aptly evoke both the airy, sun-bathed earth and the ambiguous darkness of the frog's lair. His frog king--dour, imperious, literally inflated with his own importance--is a comic masterstroke. A deceptively simple tale packed with clever verbal and visual details. Ages 5-7.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.