The Froggy Library

by Julie Fiveash

Spend your summer on Soggy Stump! This cozy, colorful, and amphibious graphic novel adventure draws inspiration from the author's background as a Diné librarian. Anura is a young frog spending the summer back home with their grandmother. With some...er...gentle prodding from Grandma, they get a job working at the local library. It's about 11 minutes in when they're tasked with a big  create an archive that captures what makes Soggy Stump so special. What the heck is even an archive?! And so begins a summer full of fry bread, weaving, zines, community gardens, manga, and (maybe) an answer to the question how do we preserve the knowledge, wisdom, and memories of the ones we love? Inspired by Julie Fiveash's Diné background and career as a librarian, and infused throughout with the colors of the Southwest, The Froggy Library is a love letter to Native communities, summers with friends and family, and libraries everywhere.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Middle Grade, Childrens, Comics, Indigenous, LGBT, Young Adult

256 pages, Paperback

Published April 14, 2026

Reviews

[Maia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anura, a teen frog, is spending their summer with Grandma Juniper in Soggy Stump, an indigenous community. Anura's love of books quickly turns into a summer job at the local library where they take on an ambitious task: helping build an archive that will capture the stories, skills, and memories of the Soggy Stump community! Anura starts heading out of the library to interview folks and figure out what this archive should hold- weaving, food, seeds, zines? Then a family tragedy strikes and suddenly the value of memories takes on a much more urgent and personal tone. This comic is so charming; the frog character designs delighted me, as did the little fact and explainer moments. At the heart of the story are several very nerdy teenagers becoming better friends and more connected community members, learning lessons that could serve us all. I want to spent more time in Soggy Stump!

[Steph · Rating 4 out of 5]

an adorable summertime comic about an indigenous nonbinary frog teen staying with their grandma and working at the local library for the season.

this book is short, but has a lot going for it - navajo language & culture, bookish themes & love of comics, an intro to library archiving, an intro to zines, gardening, weaving, an emphasis on learning from those around us, and an emphasis on connecting with the land and community!

at times it feels a bit overly didactic, but the messaging is so good that i didn't mind. it's clear that the author is truly passionate about libraries and fostering community in indigenous spaces.

the art style had me expecting a lighthearted juvenile comic - but this has surprising substance and depth of emotion. the second half of the book contains a jarring family tragedy, wrenching grief, and ensuing fear of losing memories & other pieces of family legacies.

also, adorable froggy characters, fun froggified references to classic comics, and many cute frog puns!

[Dylan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this was just going to be a cute little frog graphic novel but it was so much more! It had so much great information in it! Not only was there information about libraries and archives, but also zines, weaving, gardening and Navajo culture. This truly went above and beyond my expectations and I think it will especially resonate with other library workers.

[Meagan Scherer · Rating 5 out of 5]

get in, we’re going to Soggy Stump.

this was actually so precious. and somehow included everything I like. libraries, gardens, books, bookstores, art, friendship, family, the list goes on.

was not expecting the emotional depth?? thought it was just a cozy colorful read, but it was also so deep and real. and hopeful.

major shoutout to the bookseller who read and recommended this to me. may your pillow always be cold, may your tea be just the right temperature.

[kaitlyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are a functioning human being on planet Earth, please pick this book up.

Anura is the most lovely main character and walking through their journey of creating a community archive at their public library is such a beautiful storyline. I fell in love with every side character and their memories they had to share with Anura, thus helping them create a specialized archive for their town.

This book focuses on the importance of community and passing down our knowledge, as well as saving that for those that come after us. I had NO CLUE that this book would get as deep and sentimental as it did on preservation of the Earth and our memories of loved ones. It was like a knife straight to the heart as I neared the ending pages. Reading this book served as a great reminder to keep your loved ones close and always hear their stories - no matter how wacky or weird they may be.

Julie Fiveash highlighted how even children think about the outcomes of our environment, and how crucial it is we take care of it! Lavender is a phenomenal character in this storyline and I appreciated her love for Mother Nature and how passionate she was about protecting this Earth. She even shared her fears of what could happen if we don't preserve what is around us - and it was REAL and inspiring!

This book had me feeling all the feels and I think every single page is worth reading and taking your time on. What a fantastic debut graphic novel for this author.

[Kate Nachman · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars, rounded up. I wandered into a Library in Cambridge and saw this prominently displayed so of course I tucked into a comfy chair and read it cover to cover.

This is a great debut effort. It is an adorable, heartwarming tribute to memory, tradition, and libraries!

Both the writing and the drawing are immediately engaging.

[Kimberly]

I was covering a former coworker's book discussion and tried my best to get through this one, but just couldn't do it. I can't figure out who this book is for--the 3rd-5th graders found it too dense and did not like that it had a romance subplot (and they struggled to explain to me in their own words what an archive is). Several said they did like the art, describing it as "clean" and "more cartoony", and one cheerfully said she liked the color palate. A few made comments about the amount of sweating the frog seems to do, which led to a debate on whether it's a very nervous frog or just sort of always wet. We ended up making zines (what a blast from the past) about our lives for the tie-in activity, and that seemed to work well.

I would probably pitch this as more of a middle school read, so I'm giving some side eye to the professional reviews that labeled it ages 8-12.

[Zeta · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the kind of book I'd have read and reread as a kid until my copy fell apart. The art style is adorable, and the story is educational on a lot of different topics (gardens! zines! library archives and their importance to conserving knowledge and information!), written in an engaging way that's accessible for anyone to understand. Some panels made me laugh aloud, and a climactic scene towards the end had me trying not to cry while reading at work.

This is a great book, and one of my favorite debuts of the year.

[Abigail · Rating 5 out of 5]

So freaking amusing and heartwarming! This warm colored, cutsey middle grade graphic novel follows Anura, a young frog, as he visits his grandmother for the summer. He gets a part time job at Soggy Stump’s tribal library where he starts developing a local archive. Readers will get to learn alongside Anura about archives, community gardens, weaving, zine making, and more. This adorable story about a frog working at a library encourages learning and getting involved in local community efforts. It also shows Anura grappling with heavier topics, including grieving the death of a family member and choosing how to preserve their memory. It’s so obvious that Julie Fiveash loves libraries, their community, and their Diné heritage. And that they enjoy getting the chance to share the things they love with people who are looking to learn. I loved this book!

Thanks to Edelweiss and Chronicle Books for providing me with an eARC!

[Kiku · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful, emotional and funny tribute to community memory!!! My favs!!!!

[Owen]

This is a neat and heartfelt look at how remembering the past is tied to how we act in the present, and how art and culture and community are all tied together.

[Telana · Rating 5 out of 5]

who knew a children's book would become a soul book for me? a book i will carry with me always and a book ill reread until my last breath. praise to this author!

[haddy ｡⋆୨୧˚]

apparently this is now required reading to work at the harrisburg district library

[HaileyAnne · Rating 5 out of 5]

An indigenous, nonbinary frog gets a summer job at a library to help with a community archive project. Need I say more?

But really, this was great. I loved how it highlighted a more unconventional kind of archive that included weavings, community gardens, zines, and more. I was expecting just a cute, fun read, but this was actually really educational, heartfelt, and inspiring.

[Chloe · Rating 4 out of 5]

SOBBED.

[Bunny Brunches · Rating 4 out of 5]

I know I'm definitely not the target age range for this book, but I saw it in the "new" section of my local library and the frogs and the art style looked warm and cute! I like a good the summer vacation story, similar to the Sunny books, and this was just that. It got more unexpectedly emotional as the book progressed and tackling subject matter such as grief and holding onto bits of culture and memory that you lose when you lose someone. I liked the theme that we as people are walking archives, and as long as we keep others' stories and memories alive, they will live on.

I also enjoyed details such as the main character Anura being depicted as a tadpole, to signify they were still growing, and also small educational details about weaving practices, plants and zines.

My favorite section of the book is when Anura is remembering their grandma and trying to carry their grandma's memories in a bag in a sort of dreamlike state of grief, and the art style changes to be more sketchy and the colors darken. I absolutely love when graphic novels employ a change in visual style to denote a change in tone or the mental state of the character we're following, since that feels like a device so unique to graphic novels as a medium.

I would say the story did try to tackle a lot of themes from Native American indigenous culture preservation, to friendship, to grief, to making art and zines as a form of expression, to climate change...and because of the page count at times squeezing so many messages into one book made it feel a bit preachy, but I also understand it's a book for kids 😁

I loved the section at the end seeing the author was inspired by their own life and lots of the places depicted were taken from places they had been, informing the desert setting.

[seasalted.citrus (Topaz, Oliver) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve had The Froggy Library on my list of anticipated releases since I saw it on a post about indigiqueer books (always nice to see more than the same 5 circulated authors), and I’m pleased to say this was as cute as I expected!! While Anura is an arguably by-the-books optimistic protagonist, I found their solutions to be age-appropriate, and their chipper nerdiness makes them an engaging outlet for the author’s zest for library life.

(Also, I’m thinking of pursuing a degree in library sciences, and I have some archival experience, so this was tailor-made for me LOL)

Besides Anura, the cast of characters is vibrant and memorable! Of course, part of that comes from the simplistic but very personality-filled illustrations. I loved seeing the sheer range of knowledge and viewpoints on display. Not many frogs felt super archetypal to me. Juniper and Anura’s familial bond is easily the centerpiece, though, and not just for plot reasons.

The worldbuilding was cute. Doing the bulk of it through library services was creative! (The “stop running on frog time” joke does make me curious about some of the Indigenous frog terminology in-universe, though… how does that work?)

However, I did think that some of the facts/lessons taught were done so in a kind of clunky way. The pacing is also very slow, and I would’ve liked to see a bit more progress on the archive…

That said, don’t be fooled by the overall lighthearted tone and cute art style: There is a surprisingly grounded, emotional message around preserving your culture and carrying the legacy of your loved ones. (There’s some foreshadowing, which I noticed on a reread.) I did almost tear up the first time I read the ending. What a gut punch.

Earnest and loving in equal measure, a much-needed shoutout to local libraries and knowledge-keeping in this political climate. Surprisingly in depth about cultural anxiety and the connection to your roots being muddied by loss; it avoids relegating its froggy Navajo characters to allegory. I look forward to seeing what else this world has in store. Frog puns can only offer so much insight.

[Ms. Yingling · Rating 3 out of 5]

E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus

Anura enjoys visiting with his grandmother Juniper in Soggy Stump. He gets a job helping out at the local library, where he is trying to get a community archive started. He visits one of his grandmother's friends who weaves rugs, learns about seed libraries, and even works on zines. When his grandmother becomes ill, he wishes he had spent more time with her, but his cousin Flower offers some comfort when his grandmother passes away.

This graphic novel has some happy moments, but also addresses some deeper issue of family and cultural heritage. The illustrations are interesting; I liked seeing the different architectural styles on buildings in the desert. I would have liked it if the author had shared more specifics about Diné heritage, and was a little confused as to why the main character was a frog. (I guess it's a little like Bell's El Deafo, where she portrays herself as a rabbit.) Readers who enjoyed Sneve and Littlebird's
The Summer of the Bone Horses, Cohen's Two Tribes, or Mukwa's The Ribbon Skirt.

[Adrian Muñoz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I LOVE this book. Before I talk about how much I love this book, I want to address some of the reviews I read. Some reviews said this book had a “didactic tone” and it’s SUPPOSED to. Indigenous teaching is THAT way. Everything and everyone has a story. Life is supposed to be that way. You learn from elders, your community, your land. Every character was in depth and for good reason - they were all teaching Anura what they did, how they did it, and why it was important. Anura was building an archive. How boring if we met Lavender and all she said was that she ran a garden… NO, the whole point is that she’s doing it because she loves it AND is passionate about preserving the land. This book is indigenous and incredible! This book was NEVER boring to me - I even reread it!
(It took me a while to think about what I was going to write in my review because I had stayed up thinking about the reviews I initially read and how they totally missed the point.)

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had high hopes but the overly didactic tone and minimal character work made this a slog at points. Most interactions between the MC and other characters came with a grand speech. It became tiring and the words didn't feel real. I felt disconnected because none of the characters acted like real people.

I did appreciate the more serious tone towards the end with the ailing grandmother. It brought some much needed grounded-ness to the story.

I was a bit confused by this graphic novel being targeted at a young audience while the MC is in high school. I thought with some slight changes to the story, Anura could have been closer in age to the readership and would have had more adult mentorship holding the different threads together.

The art was cute but I would have enjoyed more expressive facial expressions.

[Erin · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Knowledge is sacred, easily taken away or lost, and our Indigenous knowledge keepers know this better than anyone."

Despite the frogs on the cover, this is full of such cozy realness. The library is under pressure and Anura's grandmother's asthma is giving her trouble, and while these challenges are front and center, there is community support and sharing and compassion all over this story. Anura learns more about the library and the local community while spending a summer with their grandmother, the library and local experts work on sharing expertise with the wider community, and there is such an atmosphere of care in Soggy Stump.

The ending implied more installments, and I would love to see them.

[Jennybeast · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kind of an odd book, if I'm honest, but lots of themes I like: building a community archive at the local library, exploring weaving and gardening and zines, making connections to Diné heritage and history. I also liked that it's true to itself -- they really are frogs, and were tadpoles left in the community pond as part of their life cycle... but they have hair...

Also, it's kind of all over the place, in the sense that I wasn't expecting the sudden hospitalization and death of grandma -- and maybe that's just true to life as well. Anyway. Very much feels like a summer in the life of Anura, and it's a pretty vibrant life.

[Starr ❇✌❇ · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very sweet story that definitely gives you a beginner's guide to what work in a library can look like! I didn't expect the library details to be as technical as they were, and I love that this book talks about libraries as centers of communities while also looking at the community as a whole. I also didn't expect this book to take place in a Diné community! I loved hearing Anura interacting with his community and how organic the whole thing was.

[Grace Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Better for 3-5 than 6-8: art style is younger than I would try to give to most middle schoolers (chibi-like). Reminds me of The Tea Dragon Society - strong theme of learning from elders before their knowledge is lost. Loved learning more about native culture too through the story. Very moving and touches on difficult topics very well.

[ebigeyl wells]

staff rec blurb, may 26: While spending summer on Soggy Stump reservation, Anura lands a job at the tribal library! Tasked to create an archive, they meet new froggy friends and find creative ways to preserve the nation's interests. Along the way, Anura learns that action and community care can be a form of archival work too. This cozy, colorful comic is the perfect way to kick off summer!

[Andréa]

Note: I accessed a digital review copy of this book through Edelweiss.

[Nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

Art super cute, about all my fave topics, and it made me cry?! Perfection!

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book so much!! Touching story with thought provoking ideas about what types of artifacts or information can effectively tell the story of a community. Also loved the zines section!!

[Heather Edwards · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an okay junior fiction graphic novel. Not my favorite as I became bored easily. I still finished it though.

[Casey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn’t realize this children’s book would leave me sobbing about how much I miss my Nana!