Lots of Frogs

This is a debut for this author who has created a book full of quirky humour to delight any small child. Written in four line stanzas, the tale begins, ‘Tommy Fox/owns a box. /In the box?/Lots of frogs.’  We have already met literally hundreds of frogs on the front cover and frothing all over the front endpapers, happily leaping, laughing, grinning and gamboling. Show and tell being what it is in Nursery and KS1 classrooms, of course, little boy Tommy has to take his box into school. Unfortunately he coughs, which causes the lid to fly off, and out jump the frogs. Not just a few but dozens upon dozens it seems, frogs going berserk, children laughing, shouting, teachers shrieking. Tom does his best to recapture his frogs, bouncing round the school on his space hopper, appalled when the frogs jump in the headteacher’s hair! Once every frog is returned to the box, Tom smiles in relief. But then – he coughs!  Boldt is the winner of a Book Trust Best New Illustrators Award, and she has filled every page with frogs having a WHALE of a time, getting up to all sorts of mischief and elaborating upon Calvert’s rhyming text, which reads aloud very well. A book to enthral young children, especially those with an interest in the frog and its fascinating life cycle.