One Gaping Wide-Mouthed Hopping Frog

ONE GAPING WIDE-MOUTHED HOPPING FROG Written and Illustrated by LESLIE TRYON Where to buy

Reviews From Kirkus Reviews, February 1, 1993 The talented illustrator who debuted with Albert’s Alphabet (ALA Notable, 1991) sports with numbers in a cumulative look at a community where the eponymous frog delivers mail to " 3 monkeys dancing the clog, 4 ostriches who like to jog," and so on. The variety of animals provides opportunities for some delightfully inventive costumes and activities: there are five busy pups at Mrs. Golden's Day Care; the carpentry of eight beaver "joiners" recalls the industry of Albert (who drives the school bus here); while ten peacocks hover above the cozy community--by plane, balloon, and parachute. As in L. L. Brooke's Johnny Crow, the story is minimal but skillfully orchestrated, while there’s lots to search out, identify, and count, especially in a final aerial scene in which all the animals appear. Again, Tryon's good- humored caricatures have a wit and charm that should endear them to generations of readers. (Picture book. 3-7) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. From Horn Book Based on an eighteenth-century rhyme, this counting book casts the gaping wide-mouthed hopping frog of the title in the role of postman, delivering the mail to such village inhabitants as monkeys dancing the clog and joiners on a joiners hall. Although the illustrations are set in modern day, they are chaotic and more than slightly fey and do nothing to overcome the difficulties of the rhyme's archaic language. -- Copyright © 1993 The Horn Book, Inc. All rights reserved. Synopsis As the gaping wide-mouthed hopping frog--the postman for Pleasant Valley--makes his daily rounds, he encounters a variety of cheerful characters, from three monkeys dancing the clog to ten flying peacocks, in a lively cumulative counting book. Card catalog description Hopping Frog, the mail carrier, takes the reader along his route through a village bustling with activity in this counting rhyme.