Puss Reboots: Blog: August 2024: Big Frog, Little Pond

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Advocate by Eddie Ahn
Big Frog, Little Pond by George Mendoza and Peter Parnall (Illustrator)
Campfire Cooking in Another World with My Absurd Skill: Volume 2 by Ren Eguchi, MASA (Illustrator), and Kevin Chen (Translator)
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DON'T TOUCH THAT!: A Sci-Fi and Fantasy Parenting Anthology edited by Jaymee Goh
Hitting the Books by Jenn McKinlay and Allyson Ryan (Narrator)
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Murder by the Bookend by Laura Gail Black and Susan Boyce (Narrator)
Puzzleheart by Jenn Reese
The Secret Language of Birds by Lynne Kelly
The Sleepwalkers by Scarlett Thomas
Spanish Dagger by Susan Wittig Albert
There Are No Ants in This Book by Rosemary Mosco and Anna Pirolli (Illustrator)
Tik-Tok by Candace Robinson and Amber R. Duell
Who's Got the Apple? by Jan Lööf, Ole Risom and Linda Hayward (Translators)
The World of Oz: A Fantastic Expedition Over the Rainbow by Allen Eyles

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Big Frog, Little Pond: 08/09/24

Big Frog, Little Pond by George Mendoza and Peter Parnall (Illustrator) (1971) is about a pond full of small frogs who have to contend with a noisy neighbor. It's also a matter of opposites: big frog in a little pond, little frogs in a big pond.

I was attracted to the picture book because I recognized Peter Parnall's artwork on the cover. He did the illustrations to Byrd Baylor's Everybody Needs a Rock (1974).

The story I think is ultimately about marginalized people needing to work together to out maneuver the extremely privileged. After each individual frog having their song drowned out by the bullfrog's constant belching, one of them gets the idea that they should go to his pond and sing together to drown out his noise and maybe chase him away. For the younger set, the story would be about how to deal with a bully. A bully-frog.

Peter Parnall's illustrations though are the star of this book. He uses irregular shapes with bold outlines. He also uses color sparingly, making where and when he does count.

Four stars