Being Frog

PreS-Gr 3--A frog is a living being with habits and needs. The author's spare verse walks the reader through detailed photographs of a frog's typical day, including lots of waiting, swimming, and leaping. The text does a good job of evoking and contextualizing a frog's life without overwhelming readers with excessive information by using simple rhymes. Notable omissions, including a frog's diet, make this best for a very young audience rather than for research projects. Detailed photographs show frogs in their natural habitats and reveal the textures and tones of a pond, a plant, or a rock. The photos could encourage crowd participation in a storytime setting; the storyteller could ask very young children to find the frog on the page, list the plants or environments they see, or describe what the frog is doing (swimming, sitting, climbing). While resources for further exploration are limited to three websites, the inclusion of a resource for recorded frog songs and calls is a unique feature. VERDICT A beautifully photographed nonfiction book suitable for read-aloud.--Savannah Kitchens, Parnell Memorial Library, Montevallo, AL

Focused on frogs' essential frog-ness rather than anthropomorphized interpretations of amphibian life, Sayre uses rich photographs and evocative language to explore how frogs might understand and experience their environments. Spare, poetic language with a loose sense of rhyme is paired with photographs documenting frogs at rest and in motion: "A frog must hunt./ It scans. It spies./ It crawls. It lunges./ It fails. Retries." Sayre's close-up photos have a crystalline lucidity, immersing readers in the animals' lush, watery world. Simple questions ("Does frog time fly? Or trail, snail-slow?") invite readers to consider how the world may look and feel to a frog. A robust author's note thoughtfully explains how the book was made, as well as the differences between anecdotal evidence and scientific study. Sayre's gentle argument--"for me a made-up frog cannot match the beauty of a real frog--a creature so alive in its pond world"--persuades. Ages 3-8. (Feb.)