Picasso the Green Tree Frog

A green tree frog enjoys for awhile the multicolored skin he aquires when he falls into a jar of jelly beans, but then he wishes for his familiar color back.

PreSchool-Grade 1 ``Picasso could plop into a muddy puddle and turn brown.'' This sets up the situation for a green tree frog who can change color with his surroundings. The idea of a chameleon-like tree frog becoming multicolored when he falls into a jar of jellybeans has the potential for fun, but this enactment fails to leap out with creative charm. Vivid and predominantly green double-page spreads overpower the thin story, which lacks fluidity. The story holds no surprises, and there is no sense to the ending. Picasso ``regreens'' by eating all of the jellybeans except the green ones. He thinks that he is himself againbut he can't see his backside, which is resting against a multi-colored caterpillar. Although the illustrations are splashy, an overall coyness in the text, including the frog's name, muddies the effect. Julie Cummins, New York Public Library
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.