Why are there frogs travelling around on floating lily pads all night long? Your child will never think of Tuesday as a boring day between Monday and Wednesday again. This winner of The Caldecott Medal evokes imagination and creativity as readers to try and explain what is happening on the pages. Only one sentence and a few time references offer any assurance at all that what you see is actually happening. The real story is told in the pictures, which are detailed and beautifully colored against backdrops of purple and deep blue to remind us that the entire book takes place very late on a Tuesday night. The pictures are also set up with creative displays; some pages are broken into panels, some are complete two-page spreads, and some have panels inlayed over a larger spread. The disjointed presentation of some of the pictures compliments the mystery they are portraying - is all that really happening?
The pictures will stoke your child's imagination and create questions; how are they floating? Are they aliens? Are they magic? Is it all a dream? You can guess with your child the possible causes and motivations of the frogs, because the author leaves the book open-ended. Readers of all ages can enjoy the subtle humor, whether it's the shocked expression of the bird seeing frogs floating by, the frogs zipping right through the clothing rack, or the frog changing the TV remote with his tongue.
My five-year-old friend Nick wanted me look back through the book as soon as we'd finished, as he thought we must have missed a page. He wanted a clear explanation of what was going on. When it was apparent that we read all the information that the author was going to give, I suggested that we come up with our own explanation. We settled on the idea that the frogs must be vampire frogs, since the sun scared them away. Now Nick wants to be a vampire frog for next Halloween.
--Audra