Price: £11.99
Publisher: Walker Books Ltd
Genre: Picture Book
Age Range: 8-10 Junior/Middle
Length: 48pp
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The Story of Frog Belly Rat Bone
The story begins in Cementland, depicted in this large format picture book as a desolate, graffiti smeared wilderness, in which a waif resembling Smiffy from Bash Street forlornly searches for treasure. He eventually finds it in the form of a box full of seed packets which he has to defend from a trio of robbing vermin. Frog Belly Rat Bone is the Golem-like figure he creates from junk to help him.
The story is told in a scrawled script printed over double page spreads of sludgy paintwork, which eventually brighten into floral glory as the tale of redemption progresses. This is a straightforward but quirky story which unites themes of companionship, salvage and salvation within an optimistic ecological theme.