Twister Chaser! Freddy the Frogcaster and the Terrible Tornado

FREDDY THE FROG WAS BACK AT THE FROG NEWS NETWORK, KEEPING HIS EYES ON THE SKY AND REHEARSING HIS WEATHER REPORT IN FRONT OF THE CAMERA.

That's fine fun for Freddy when the skies are fair, with blue skies over the little town of LilyPad. But today the weather is looking to be foul. A front is moving across the countyside and cold and warm air masses are colliding. That means it's time to start singin' "Stormy Weather."

LILYPAD IS IN FOR SOME DANGEROUS WEATHER!

Down at the TV station, a call comes in from Tad Polar, the local storm chaser with an invitation to ride shotgun with him in his Tadmobile and scan the skies for funnel-shaped clouds.

Freddy the Frog is a famous forecaster, and when there's talk of a twister, he's on it, poised to prognosticate.

Waving goodbye to his on-air colleagues, Sally Croaker and Polly Wroggins, Freddy the Frogcaster is off with Tad, who heads straight for the roiling bank of storm clouds to the west of Lilypad. Freddy focuses his binoculars on the weather front.  Suddenly, Tad points out a cloud and shouts a warning.

THAT'S A CUMULO NIMBUS!! THERE'S A FUNNEL CLOUD TOUCHING DOWN!

Freddy gets on the radio and broadcasts the warning!

"HOLY CROAKS, FOLKS!

TORNADO!"

Sally Croaker broadcasts the warning to the public. The town of Lilypad goes into emergency action. Storm sirens wail and people head for their shelters.

Tad the Intrepid and Freddy the Frogcaster are in the thick of it. But he's a pro and he stays on the job, firing a photo of the funnel cloud back the to the Frog News station as they trail the twister safely out of town.

It's a close encounter with a twister for our fearless forecaster, in Janice Dean's latest, Freddy the Frogcaster and the Terrible Tornado (Regnery Kids, 2016), another amphibian adventure of Freddy the Weather Frog. Author Dean, a TV meteorologist herself, works plenty of science into her story of storm chasing that will fit right into classroom primary science units on weather. And again artist Ross Cox provides the funny froggy illustrations of Freddy's forecasting feats, as he did in the other books in this series, Freddy the Frogcaster, Freddy the Frogcaster and the Huge Hurricane, and Freddy the Frogcaster and the Big Blizzard.

Do The Right Thing! Frog on a Log by Kes Gray

"HEY, FROG!" SAID CAT.

"SIT ON A LOG!"

"I DON'T WANT TO SIT ON A LOG. THEY HAVE SPLINTERS," SAID FROG.

But Cat is adamant. This is way things are done. Cats get to sit on mats; hares on chairs, mules on stools, and gophers on sofas. So frogs have to sit on logs. Get the picture?

"THAT DOESN'T SOUND VERY COMFORTABLE," SAID FROG.

"IT'S NOT ABOUT BEING COMFORTABLE," SAID CAT.

"IT'S ABOUT DOING THE RIGHT THING."

Never mind logic. Cat drones on with her list of unlikely but proper seating. Fleas on peas, cows on plows, snakes on cakes, gorillas on pillars, on and on.

Frog is enjoying trying to trip up Cat, but the feline expert has got a million of them, as his rhyming rules get sillier and sillier. Parrots on carrots? Seriously? But Frog's got the log, so he comes up with what he thinks is the perfect stumper for Cat.

"WHAT DO DOGS SIT ON?"

"I WAS AFRAID YOU WERE GOING TO ASK THAT!" SAID CAT.

Kes Gray's fantastically funny Frog on a Log? (Scholastic Press, 2015) has it all--wonderful wordplay, a spot of irony, and an appealing rhyming-word story that will keep young emergent readers in the game all the way through. But artist Jim Field gets the last, er, word on assigned seating on the last (and appropriately wordless) page where Dog gingerly takes his seat on. . . Frog! Delightful illustrations and predictable rhymes will have youngsters in stitches, chiming in on the rhymes as the story comes down to its unexpected but satisfying ending in a story that Dr. Seuss would envy. "Easy-to-read rhyming fun. From the hilarious endpapers, where the frog is cast in many poses, including reading the newspaper while on the toilet, readers know they are in for an irreverent treat," says Kirkus Reviews in their starred review.

Into the Bog with.... Maggi and Milo by Juli Brenning

MAGGI IS AN EXCELLENT ADVENTURER,

A BIT OF A SCIENTIST, AND MILO'S BEST FRIEND.

So when Maggi comes home to find a package from Grandma. she tears it open to find a book and a pair of blue polka-dotted boots. And Grandma clearly knows her girl. The book is about hunting frogs and there's nothing for it but for Maggi to pull on her boots and head right out to the pond to see what's hoppin.'

Nothing is hopping, swimming, or croaking. Maggi stands motionless for about a million or so minutes. She comes to a conclusion.

"... WET FEET MAKE FOR A LONG DAY."

Her shaggy shepherd Milo has better things to do. He wanders off. Finally Maggi gives up on frog spotting, realizes Milo is missing, and splashes off to find him.

"M.....ILO?"

MILO HAD FOUND FROGS!

Maggi starts naming her foundling frogs--Alexander, Benjamin, Cooper.... until she stops abruptly at Princess Penelope...

Maggi has hit the wall:

"NO WAY I CAN THINK OF A GIRL'S NAME THAT STARTS WITH Q!"

The sun may have set on Maggi's frog-hunting for the day, but there's always another adventure ahead for Maggi and Milo, in Juli Brenning's Maggi and Milo (Dial Books, 2014), which introduces this piquant pig-tailed adventuress and her shaggy sidekick. Artist Priscilla Burris gives us a gung-ho girl, ebullient, joyful, and a bit of a risk taker, under the mostly watchful eyes of her big black and white dog. "...there's a new spunky gal-and-canine twosome in town," says Kirkus.

He Who Laughs Last....: AH HA! by Jeff Mack

LOOK BEFORE YOU LEAP!

It's a good rule, especially out there in the swamp, and, for sure, it's one this chubby little frog should keep in mind as he takes a flying leap onto that smooth, sun-warmed rock. A-A-A-H-H-H-H! A fine spot for an awesome amphibian nap!

Except there's a determined barefoot boy, hound dog pup at his heels, armed with a canning jar with its stout lid and gunning for a capture. Down it comes on Frog just as he stretches out to sleep. Clap! and Frog is a specimen--under glass!

"AH HA!"

But his pup cannot curb his enthusiasm and jumps up at the jar, causing the boy to let it slip, and Frog falls out, free as, well,... a frog, with an AHHHH! of relief. He leaps out over the water to a pale rock with dark spots and grins at the hapless boy on the shore!

But that rock is not what it seems.  It's a hungry turtle's back, and the snapper's chomper snakes back ready for a bite!  A-a-a-a-a-ahhhHH!

Frog launches himself forward onto what looks like some tall reeds near the cattails, sighs an a-a-a-hhh!,  just as Flamingo's business end, his beak, swivels around ready for a bite of  the frog on his leg with a triumphant HA! But Frog is already leaping away across the water, landing on what he believes is a lucky log.

By this point in the story, most savvy readers will KNOW that's no log at all. It's an alligator, aiming to munch a bunch of Frog for lunch. Frog needs to make the leap of his life, which lands him....

... well inside a nice, safe jar, as the boy fields the catch of his life!

There are yet more AAHHHs and AH HAs and one happy HA HA! ahead in this game of leapfrog before Frog gets that last laugh, in Jeff Mack's recent Ah Ha! (Chronicle Books, 2013). A charming tour de force of a text using words made up of just two letters in only three combinations, set off by beautifully composed illustrations which will have most youngsters leaping right in to read along with every novel page turn. This one is so much fun to read aloud that everyone (even the most early reader) will want a shot at putting  his or her own pizzazzy spin on those three words. As Publishers Weekly puts it, "... more than just a great script: it’s gorgeous, too, with lush and tightly composed images, hypersaturated colors, and textures reminiscent of midcentury printing."

Jeff Mack is also the author of the similarly styled Good News, Bad News (Chronicle, 2012).

Ready to Ribbet? Stink and the Freaky Frog Freakout by Megan McDonald

THE SHARK SNEAKED THROUGH THE WATER LIKE A SILVER STREAK.  STINK FELT SOMETHING GRAB HIS LEG.     S-S-SHARK ATTACK!!

AARGH! STINK LEAPED OUT OF THE WATER, KER-SPLASH!

THE SNEAKY SHARK WAS HIS SISTER JUDY!

"I'M A SHARK AND YOU'RE STILL A POLLIWOG. YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO PUT YOUR HEAD UNDERWATER SOME TIME, STINK!  I'M ALMOST A BARRACUDA!"

Swimming lessons are not exactly going swimmingly for Stink, stuck with his head determinedly above water, inseparable from his swim noodle, while almost-Barracuda Judy shows off, diving to the bottom of the pool for quarters. Stink can't wait to get away from the water.

But when he finds a little tree frog with three legs in the locker-room shower, Stink gets interested in frogs. Frogs show up in his bathtub, his boots, the garden hose, and even in their garage. Is it raining frogs?

To find out why the town is full of frogs, Stink's dad takes him and his friends to the local nature center for a lesson on amphibians, where a graduate student named Jasper invites them along for the annual Frog Neck Lake Frog Count--if he can pass a test on identifying frog calls. Judy even pitches in to help, Stink leaps to the head of the frog call class, and with his Frog Log clipboard and Sophie and Webster along as assistants, Stink counts croaks and  learns a lot about why, because of environmental problems, there are fewer frogs croaking in the lake but more of them sproinging in the suburbs than ever before.

Then the next morning, Stink wakes up in the middle of an exciting Spiderman dream  to find a  frog licking the freckle on his arm. Could this frog be like Peter Parker's spider?  Could it be giving Stink special frog powers?

THE FROG WAS BLUE.

THIS FROG WAS NOT NORMAL.  THIS FROG WAS A MUTANT!

AND ... THE FROG HAD LICKED STINK.  JUST LIKE THE SPIDER THAT BIT PETER PARKER!

FREAKY FROG FREAKOUT!  STINK HAD A PETER PARKER OF A SECRET!

At breakfast the raisins in Stink's cereal start to look just like dead flies.  He eats them first. Then he eats all of Judy's  dead flies, er, raisins, too.  He discovers that his tongue is long enough to touch his nose.  He has an overwhelming desire to play outside in the rain, leaping through puddles and playing in the mud.  Worms are even looking good to him. Can he be feeling his freaky frog powers?

Now Stink can't wait for the next swim lesson.  Frogs love to swim underwater, and they never need a noodle, either. Stink just knows he's going to leapfrog forward into barracuda level even before Judy!

Megan McDonald's latest, Stink and the Freaky Frog Freakout (Book #8) (Candlewick Press, 2013), has Stink & Company hopping happily into a watery world of amphibians as bossy Judy Moody's little brother Stink finds himself diving into the deeps all by himself in this eighth book in the spinoff Stink series. A little sibling rivalry (and cooperation), a bit of overcoming fears, a lot of incidental learning about amphibian environments, and Peter Reynolds' inspired black-and-white comic illustrations make this newest Stink story a winner for reluctant and beginning chapter readers and a natural for summer nature study adventures. McDonald even tucks in fun frog Creature Feature quizzes along the way so that readers take away some awesome amphibian information as well as a dozen ways to say "Ribbet!"

Magical Malfunction: Frogged by Vivian Vande Velde

Chapter 3: A Princess Ought To Be Fearless

(That's just crazy: the only people who are fearless are people who have no imagination.)

Princess Imogene Eustacia Wellington is in an un-princessly snit.

Her parents have invited that pesky Prince Malcolm from the kingdom next door to her thirteenth  birthday party. She didn't like him when he was eleven, and he's only going to be just as annoying this time, only bigger!

And the Queen Mother has assigned her to read a boring book, The Art of Being a Princess, fourteen chapters, one smarmy chapter a day, before her birthday, beginning with The Foreword. (Are you kidding? Nobody reads the foreword.)

Princess Imogene has some fun writing snarky comments after each chapter heading, but as for actually reading, she makes it only as far as the opening sentence--One should always strive to be the sort of princess about whom it is said, "She was as good as she was beautiful,"--before ditching the book. She's not feeling particularly beautiful (her hair is impossible), and she's not in the mood to be good, either, as she sneaks out of the castle and goes for a walk. Suddenly, she hears a little voice from somewhere.

"Hey, Princess!"

Princess Imogene realizes that there's a frog on a stereotypical lily pad talking to her. And that frog has a  very strange story--and a vaguely familiar request:

"A witch puts a spell on a prince, turns the prince into a frog.  The only way to break the spell is if a princess  comes along and...you know... 

Don't worry, Princess.  I got my clothes on. They changed right long with me!"

"A Princess Is Always Kind and Helpful--and Fearless," the book had said, so Imogene puckers up and the frog puckers up, insofar as a frog can, and the princess kisses the frog.

The frog turns into a boy--a boy who is NOT and has never been a prince, and that's not the worst of it. It seems the frog omitted one important point in his request: when he turns back into a boy, Imogene becomes a frog in his stead.

And so begins the most interesting fourteen days in Frog Princess Imogene's young life, as she joins the love-snockered farmer's daughter, Luella, hoping to talk her into taking her back to the castle so her parents can deal with the frog problem. But Luella, although kind, has other interests, namely following the "cute" Bertie off with a troupe of actors who promise her a starring role. But Luella soon learns that boys lie and will say anything to get a free washerwoman and cook, and poor Imogene finds herself part of a comedy act--A Boy and His Talking Frog--as they tour from village to village. Being a princess is beginning to look like a better deal all along to the frogged Imogene and it looks like the ditsy and romantically besotted Luella is her only hope to make it back to the castle.

Perhaps the author inherited her comedic writing skills from her mother, who provided her with the perfectly alliterated name, but however she came into them, Vivian Vande Velde is one of the foremost purveyors of the funny and fanciful fractured fairy tale, and her latest does not disappoint.  Our grumpy 'tweener princess Imogene learns a lot about the ways of the medieval world during her coming-of-age days as a captive frog, a time in which she comes to appreciate some of those virtues she formerly spurned.  Even the clueless Luella comes through in the end, returning her to her kingdom and, with a little bit of intellectual assistance from the Queen, comes up with the key to solving her dilemma of  how to become her princessly self without turning another person into a frog in the bargain.

Vande Velde's tongue-in-cheek storytelling, with each chapter an ironic exposition of the chapter headings of The Art of Being A Princess, develops believably within its fairy tale premise, each character fittingly drawn, with the sparklingly humorous dialogue for which the author is well known. Her latest,  Frogged (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013), forthcoming April 2, shows Vande Velde at the top of her craft in a funny, freewheeling, fractured fairy tale whose happily-ever-after ending can't help but delight middle readers.

Some of Vivian Vande Velde's other comic walks on the fantastical side include her stuck-inside-the-video game spoofs, User Unfriendly, Deadly Pink, and Heir Apparent, and her body-switching, talking pooch tale, Smart Dog.

Tempus Fugit! City Dog Country Frog by Mo Willems and John Muth

CITY DOG DIDN'T STOP ON THE FIRST DAY IN THE COUNTRY. HE RAN AS FAR AND FAST AS HE COULD.

AND ALL WITHOUT A LEASH!

CITY DOG SPOTTED SOMETHING HE HAD NEVER SEEN, SITTING ON A ROCK. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" ASKED CITY DOG.

"WAITING FOR A FRIEND," REPLIED COUNTRY FROG. "BUT YOU'LL DO."

And do he does. It's a friendship made in heaven, and through the spring days Country Frog smiles broadly as he teaches City Dog to do all the froggy things--jumping, splashing, and sitting on rocks. City Dog's tail never stops wagging, and Frog learns to ride on the swimming Dog's head.

City Dog returns in summer, and he begins to teach Country Frog city dog games--sniffing, barking, and especially fetching sticks. Country Frog tosses and City Dog fetches. Country Frog keeps on smiling, and City Dog's tail never stops wagging as the two friends play all day, and when it rains, Country Frog shelters Dog under an umbrella leaf.

Then it is Fall, and City Dog returns to Frog's rock by the pond, hoping for dog or frog games.

"I AM A TIRED FROG," REPLIED COUNTRY FROG. "MAYBE WE CAN PLAY REMEMBERING GAMES."

Dog and Frog sit on their adjoining rocks and remember the jumping, and splashing and sniffing and barking and fetching games. And that is fall.

And then it is winter. When City Dog returns, there is snow everywhere, and ice covers the pond. Country Frog is not on his rock, and City Dog sits there alone, his tail down and still, as the cold wind blows over the lonely scene.

Spring returns, and with it City Dog, but Country Frog does not. City Dog is still alone on the rock. Then someone appears.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" ASKED COUNTRY CHIPMUNK.

"WAITING FOR A FRIEND," REPLIED CITY DOG SADLY.

THEN HE SMILED A FROGGY SMILE. "BUT YOU WILL DO."

Mo Willems, three-time Caldecott and two-time Geisel award winning author/illustrator, famed for his humorous urban cartoon-style stories, has written a different sort of story, teaming up with the Caldecott winner John Muth (Zen Shorts) to create a beautiful and moving story, elegant in its simplicity and depth, about the cycle of the seasons, the cycle of life, and the circle of friendship. Their product, City Dog, Country Frog (Hyperion, 2010), is a book which needs to be seen to be fully appreciated. Muth's watercolored illustrations are softly stunning, like the text simple and spare, yet fully evocative of each season, rendered alternately in the soft greens and pastels of spring, the lush deep colors of summer, and the more limited oranges and browns of fall (even Frog moving from his summer green to take on that autumnal shade), and finally the muted blues, grays, and lavenders of the snowy winter scene. Dog's tail, wagging or still, speaks volumes, as does Frog's happy grin when the two are together. It is a book which says more than does the text, the words and illustrations becoming one, yet augmenting each other in that form which comes together to make the perfect picture book.

Fitting In With Your Friends: Big Frog Can't Fit In: A Pop-Out Book by Mo Willems

POOR BIG FROG.

SHE CAN'T FIT IN THIS BOOK.

IF ONLY SHE WERE SMALLER. . .

OR MORE . . .BENDABLE!

Squished into the shape of a pretzel, poor Big Frog clearly needs some help from her friends.

The little frogs try to make her smaller by shortening her legs by way of a pull tab, which simultaneously reduces her long legs and puts a happy smile on her face. Still that's not quite enough to keep some of her gangly parts from popping out of the book when it's closed. Still she longs to "fit in" with her friends.

Well, if they can't make her smaller, the friends figure, there's only one thing to do. And they find a way to help Big Frog find her true ex-pression!

MAKE A BIGGER BOOK!

YAY, FRIENDS!

Multiple award-winner Mo Willems and paper engineer Bruce Foster push the toy and movable book genre to new limits in their new Big Frog Can't Fit In: A pop-out book, wonder of design which combines clever folding, pop-ups and pop-outs, flaps, tabs, and crafty page layouts to take the art of the picture book a big, er, leap, um, hop forward (and backward and to each side actually) in this wonderfully creative collaboration which s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-s this format beyond its between-covers-limits. At a time when ebook variations are expanding the limits of the traditional book in their own direction, Willems is one of the most inventive author/artists currently working in the field, and this offering shows his willingness to expand the concept of the book in novel, tactile directions.

More Frogs and Toads: The Frogs and Toads All Sang by Arnold Lobel

An undiscovered work by an old master is always exciting, especially when it foreshadows a major period in the creator's body of work still to come. Award-winning author/illustrator Arnold Lobel is probably best known for his Frog and Toad series, and the publication of an unknown work which presages these books is like a gift from the past.

Lobel created a little hand-made book, The Frogs and Toads All Sang, as a gift for family friends George and Crosby Bonsall, best known for her beloved Who's A Pest? series of beginning reader books. Lobel's small book of skillful pencil sketches and short, piquant poems turned up at Bonsall's estate sale and were serendipitously returned to Lobel's daughter, Adrianne, who, studiously using her father's favorite dyes, wide brushes, and technique, ("Don't be afraid to color outside the lines," he once told her), colored his simple pencil drawings with watercolors and arranged for publication this May by HarperCollins.

The illustrations themselves are joyful and ebullient, in style suggesting Lobel's later and better-known work, and the short poems they set off show the delicious ironic humor which has made his work children's classics for decades. Here, for example, is a bit of wisdom which might well have become one of the Frog and Toad stories.

MADE FOR TOADS

A sunny day
Is made for toads
To play and leap
Down dusty roads

A rainy day
Is made for frogs
To swim in swamps
And under logs .

In weather gray
Or weather bright,
For some the day
May be just right.

And here again, it seems we have a vignette that might have sparked another amphibian tale:

THERE WAS A FROG

There was a frog
Who had a car.
He drove it fast,
He drove it far.

He travelled
Fifty days and nights,
And never looked
At traffic lights.

"I learned to drive
Quite easily.
But I never learned
To stop," said he.

Speaking of her father's restlessness when away from his work, Adrianne Lobel writes, "All Papa wanted to do was to go home and get back to his drawing table. Now I understand that, for Arnold Lobel, there was no better fun to be had."

And now, thanks to this re-discovered work, we can still have a bit of that fun along with him.

Alien Amphibian: Green Wilma, Frog in Space by Tedd Arnold

It's been some years since Tedd Arnold's irrepressible amphibian heroine Green Wilma (Puffin Pied Piper) first hopped into critical and popular success, but now it's Welcome Back, Wilma time as she finally has her own solidly deserved sequel, the just-this-week published Green Wilma, Frog in Space. (Dial, 2009).

Green Wilma, of course, is still concerned, not with thoughts of outer space, but with her mind fixed firmly on inner space--her innards, that is, which she is busy trying to fill with an all-out chase for a loudly buzzing fly. At least, Wilma thinks it's the buzzing of a fly she's pursuing, but we know that it is really the sound of an approaching alien spacecraft, which lands quietly behind the unsuspecting amphibian hunter.

Out pops little Blooger, a blue-skinned and bug-eyed alien whose parents have lovingly parked to allow their little one a bit of R & R on planet Earth. Blooger quickly sheds his spacesuit and dives with happy abandon into Wilma's pond.

But just as Green Wilma comes into close range with her prey, Blooger's parental units decide it's time to take off.

"Time to depart, Sweetheart!" they call, and a mechanical arm deploys, stuffs the nearby Wilma into little Blooger's spacesuit, and beams her aboard the craft for dinner, leaving the abandoned little alien despondently waving frantically at his departing mother ship.

Once aboard, though, the aliens can't help noticing that little Blooger seems to have become a disgusting shade of green. "It must have been the pond water that turned our little Blooger green," they opine, but to be sure nothing is amiss with their little darling, they connect up the robotic Health-o-Mat machine to diagnose his condition fully.

But just as the robo-doc sounds the alarm, "Data indicates alien being," the ever-hungry Wilma hears a familiar buzz and takes off after the fly, who also seems to have been inadvertently abducted into space. In her reckless chase, Wilma careens off the control panel, sending the spacecraft back into its previous flight plan--right back to Miller's Pond. Green Wilma is quickly booted out, and little Blooger is just as quickly boarded, and soon Wilma finds herself alone, except for the surviving fly, back on the pond's edge as though nothing had happened. Except--where did she get this handy ray gun, just right for shooting down high-flying flies?

Tedd Arnold's art is just as engaging, and googly-eyed Green Wilma is just as goofy as ever in this happy return of an old and favorite fictional friend in Green Wilma, Frog in Space.