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Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Library Day - Froggy Learns to Swim

Froggy Learns to Swim...A Great Summertime Book for Children

Overall Rating: 5/5 stars

Pros: *It's Froggy!
*Fun to read
*Froggy faces his fears

Cons: ***

The Bottom Line: Another wonderful Froggy book that children as young as two years old can enjoy. Swimming fears are faced and lovingly dealt with.

As summer approached I wanted to add some books to our daycare shelf that were about summer and its activities. One of the books that I knew would be a big hit was Froggy Learns to Swim.


The Story

Learning to swim can be a bit frightening, but should come pretty natural to a frog. Not so for Froggy as his parents took him to the pond.

FRRROOGGYY! called his mother.
“Wha-a-a-at?”
“Come on in and swim!”
“No!No! I don’t know how to swim!
I want to swing.


Froggy’s parents continued trying to coax Froggy into the water when he managed to release his hold on the swing and flew into the pond.

Frightened he grabbed on to his Mom who told him she would help him learn. Momma frog taught him things like making bubbles and floating and helped him with his flippers, mask and snorkel.

Froggy had a great time in the pond until it happened and he looked more red in the face than green at losing his swimsuit. After that he swam and swam and swam….and as his mother told him, frogs are natural swimmers.


The Illustrations

The color pencil illustrations in this book are like they appear in all Froggy books. Froggy is childlike and walks upright, but still has the appearance of a frog. Froggy and his parents wear clothing and do things that frogs wouldn’t.

Froggy and his parents are their bright green selves that they are in all of the Froggy books and the backgrounds are muted pale shades to look like sky or else there are several different drawings, to show activity, that are placed on plain white background.

The medium size black font in this book is placed where it can be easily seen, on most pages, but I did find a few places where I had difficulty in reading to my little group. I do love that the Froggy word is very large and drawn out and stands out on the pages.


My Feelings

One of the things I really liked in this Froggy book was how many different words there were to use as sound effects. The daycare children really love when we flop, flop, flop with our feet and the zips and zuts and zooks really make for a fun story to hear and to read.

I loved that in this book Froggy had fear, and the help of his mother got him through it. She was patient and kind and persistent. Eventually Froggy learned to swim and then his parents weren’t in a hurry for him to come out of the water. They waited, very patiently, while Froggy swam and swam and swam. While we don’t all have the time to wait until a child is ready to move on to another activity, I do like that Froggy’s parents encouraged him to pursue what he loved.

My daycare children, age’s 2 years to 4 years, had a lot of fun with this book and all of them sat and listened intently. There is so much activity that it even held young Sonny’s attention.

Of course the bright and colorful illustrations are very appealing and a real part of what makes this and every Froggy book so exceptional.


Nuts & Bolts

Froggy Learns to Swim
was written by Jonathan London (my daycare children are beginning to tell me the author’s name whenever I pull up a Froggy book, before I even tell them) and was illustrated by Frank Remkiewicz.

Scholastic published this 32 page softcover book in 1997.

This book is recommended for children 2 – 7 years old.

ISBN: 0-590-27452-X

Review by Kamel622 at epinions.com



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