Children's Books
Frogs
‘999 Frogs Wake Up’ and ‘Frog Song’
From "999 Frogs Wake Up"
By PAMELA PAUL
Published: February 27, 2013
To speak of an insanely gorgeous book about frogs would seem to pose a
contradiction in terms. To note two such books just seems silly.
999 FROGS WAKE UP
By Ken Kimura
Illustrated by Yasunari Murakami
48 pp. NorthSouth. $17.95. (Picture book; ages 4 to 8)
FROG SONG
By Brenda Z. Guiberson
Illustrated by Gennady Spirin
40 pp. Henry Holt & Company. $17.99. (Picture book; ages 4 to 8)
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Times Topic: Children's Books Reviews
From "Frog Song"
Yet here they are: “Frog Song,” the latest from Brenda Z. Guiberson and
Gennady Spirin (“Life in the Boreal Forest”), and “999 Frogs Wake Up,” a
sequel of sorts to 2011’s “999 Tadpoles,” by the Japanese team of Ken
Kimura and Yasunari Murakami. Both are about frogs, and both are
spectacularly illustrated. There the similarities end.
A sweet animal story for young readers, “999 Frogs Wake Up” is
cartoonish and carefree and age-appropriately anthropomorphic. It’s
springtime, and Mother Frog is the first to awaken. “Pop!” goes each of
her 999 sons and daughters as they poke their heads from the ground.
Last is Big Brother, the first in a parade of “sleepyheads” whom the
rest decide to awaken in turn. First a turtle and then a lizard and then
a crowd of ladybugs lounging under a rock.
As with its predecessor, which told the story of 999 baby frogs
threatened by assorted predators as they tried to find a suitable abode
for the whole family, the strong point of this book is its eye-popping
design. Once again, a teeming multitude of primitive yet curiously
expressive frogs are scattered on a stark white background to very
pleasing effect. The text is simple, and includes many lines of
unadorned dialogue:
The ladybugs began to wiggle and wake up.
“Spring is here!”
“I’m hungry!”
“Have the flowers blossomed yet?”
The last dozing, snoring sleepyhead is the hardest to stir. In a nod to
“999 Tadpoles,” the little frogs rouse the slumbering reptile out of its
bedtime cave with a “Heave-Ho!” until they realize the dormant tail
belongs to a predatory snake. Yet – nothing scary here! – even this
startling development is swiftly resolved before the frogs settle back
into domestic bliss.
In “Frog Song,” by contrast, the swampy creatures are described in their
intricate, full-color realistic glory – warts and all. Gennady Spirin
has four times been the recipient of a New York Times Best Illustrated
Children’s Books award, and his latest masterpiece of illustration is
nothing less than a springtime reverie. Bursting with detail, especially
in the opulent end pages, Spirin’s tableaus of blooming lily pads,
laden with flowers and frogs, resemble 17-century Dutch still lifes in
their awed contemplation of the natural world. Textures snap to life –
glistening, sticky eggs on a midwife toad; the loamy banks of a river;
the terrifying fuzziness of a frog-eating tarantula.
“Frogs have a song for trees, bogs, burrows and logs,” the text begins,
introducing frogs and their varied voices. As in the call-and-response
sequence from “The Old Mill,” a Disney Silly Symphony short from 1937,
frogs are shown to be social, communicative creatures who beckon to one
another across bogs and streams with calls and bellows far more
wide-ranging than the old “croak” and “ribbit.”
“Frog Song” all but vibrates with the sounds of their voices. The
strawberry poison dart frog of Costa Rica “trills a tiny tune in a pile
of wet leaves. Pssst-pssst.” Meanwhile, in Borneo, “a four-lined tree
frog whistles a song. Swee-Swee!” Tadpoles plop into water. An
Australian desert frog sings mwaa-mwaa-mwaa as it breaks out of its
underground cocoon to the plink-plunk-plink of rain. Each unique sound
emerges from a frog convincingly unique in shape, coloration and
habitat. The impression that emerges is one of extraordinary
biodiversity begging to be appreciated and protected.