Flora the Frog

by Isherwood Leplar, Anna C. Leplar (Illustrator)

When Flora is chosen to play the part of the frog in her school play she could not be more dissappointed! A frog - eeekk. All her friends get to be great things like foxes and trees! So Flora inadvertently becomes involved in a series of little lies until she discovers that even the most unexpected things have a special value. Then she confesses all and ends up being the most glamorous frog! A lovely book about school life and trying to tell the truth.

Genres: Picture Books

32 pages, Paperback

First published September 7, 2000

Reviews

[Lily Tice Weaver · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Surya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heart warming and cute with lovely pictures. Could empathise with the protagonist, we have all been there and sometimes we are still there.

[Grace Duthie · Rating 4 out of 5]

* Nice story; could be read to small children before giving out parts for the school Nativity (or other play) to emphasise that each part is important and not everyone will be the animal/part they wished for.

[Samantha Ferrari · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book. I thought it taught a good lesson about why it is so important to express your feelings about things. I didn't like the fact that she lied to her mom and threw the frog in the tree. But, also that goes along with the lesson at hand. She threw the frog in the tree and felt bad, then lied to her mom. She let her feelings build up inside her but didn't express them until she saw the real frogs in the pond. In the end her mom helped her and made it so that she was a pretty frog and that made her feel better.

Learning Experience: Learn to express how you feel, and if you don't like something change it so that you do. Have a cd with at least five different songs. Play a song that is happy, sad, crazy mad, exciting, and sluggish. Then have the children tell you how each song makes them feel and act it out using their bodies.

[Elizabeth S · Rating 4 out of 5]

On one level, this is a fun, sweet book with a good ending. It is a great read-aloud, and teaches some good morals.

On another level, this book can be very helpful for adults working with a child who may have difficulty expressing their thoughts and concerns. Reading the book together could be used to open conversations about how to talk about things that are hard. Also, adults may want to read and ponder on their own in order to understand children. Sometimes children do things that are wrong, including telling lies, not because they have bad motives, but because they don't know how to say what they really want to say.

[Willie Butts · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was one book that I did not like to well only because I feel that this story is teaching children that it is alright to do wrong things with no consequences. Throughout the story Flora does things that are not acceptable: she throws the costume in a tree, lies to her mother about the teacher and students liking the costume and refuses to participate with the rehearsal for the play and nothing happens to her. There are no consequences for her actions. I think that younger children could get the wrong impression after reading this book.

[Cornelius · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would use this book in the classroom to illustrate to children why we shouldn't lie to each other and although you do not like something, you can make it what you want by simply using your imagination. This is a good book for first grade children to illustrate the message of giving it a try first.