One Gaping Wide-Mouthed Hopping Frog

One Gaping Wide-Mouthed Hopping Frog
ONE GAPING WIDE-MOUTHED HOPPING FROG
Written and Illustrated by LESLIE TRYON


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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.

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