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.
Reviews
Kindergarten-Grade 3-One day the bird who wakes the sun with song is captured by a pompous, puffed-up frog who thinks himself king of the underground world. When, at the frog's command, the bird brings a single sun ray to his dark kingdom, his possessions and subjects are shown to be nothing but bits of trash. He has been deceived in his wealth, his subjects, and even his library, which is only a scrap from a telephone book. The frog, humbled by knowledge of his error, asks the bird to teach him to read from the tattered "R" page of the phone book. The message of the value of reading seems tacked on to this curious tale of enlightenment. The moral of the fable is the necessity of seeing one's situation truly, informed by the light of truth and/or understanding. The frog, in the end, suddenly sees a connection between learning to read and seeing the light, but it will not be clear to readers. The bird, as the bearer of truth and the one who greets the sun, is never explained. The story is elaborately and handsomely illustrated with full-page, bordered paintings.
Shirley Wilton, Ocean County College, Toms River, NJ
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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.
An intriguing original fable concerning a self-styled ``Frog King'' who invites a bird he's overheard singing to the sun into his underground ``kingdom.'' It's too dark to see there; still, the frog describes his throne, army, wealth, and great library, allowing the bird to touch everything before sending her to procure a ray of light from her friend the sun so that they can see these wonders. But the light shows how vain the frog's boasting has been: There are only a few scraps of junk in his domain; his crown is a bottle cap, his library a single page that he can't read. The light of truth, the story suggests, unmasks ignorance, but there's hope for this foolish posturer: He asks the bird to teach him to read. Using colored pencils over airbrushed backgrounds, Henry makes a fine debut. The smoothly rotund bird and frog are set in a luminous landscape invoked with a few carefully rendered details; the darkly mysterious underground scenes are delicately bordered with the frog's imagined riches. Spare and well-told, a tale that will especially lend itself to discussion. (Picture book. 5-9) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Ages 5-8. In this picture-book fable, the emperor not only has no clothes, he's also illiterate. When a bombastic Frog King forces a singing Bird to bring sunlight into his dark underground kingdom, both creatures are in for a shock. The Frog's "marble palace" turns out to be a small, smooth rock. His "throne" is nothing more than a roosting box, his "treasure" a single penny. While the moral comes through, the final message about reading (the sovereign can't) feels tacked onto an otherwise streamlined tale. Moreover, if the Frog King can't read, how does he know that "R is for ridiculous," as he says near the conclusion? The polished, airbrushed compositions by debuting illustrator Henry are definitely the best part of the book. The art ably contrasts the benign world above and the menacing one below the ground and intriguingly illustrates the nature of reality. Julie Corsaro
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