Oi Frog!

Kes Gray and Roald Dahl Funny Prize winner Jim Field make an excellent pairing in this picture book perfectly aimed at young children. Those first encountering phonics and reading simple ‘cat sat on the mat’ books will find hilarity in this tale of a bossy cat with extremely fixed ideas about animal nature.

In Cat’s world, not only must frog sit on a log, whether he likes it or not, but gophers sit on sofas, hares sit on chairs and lions sit on irons. My young audience quickly got the joke and continued inventing their own silly rhymes when the story was finished. But it is the illustrations that really recommend the book. The po-faced, know-it-all cat contrasts with the various animals whose reactions range from bafflement to discomfort in a series of increasingly funny scenes, making this a picture book that is fun to share.