Plot
The story contains only six words and three points that determine the time of the action. The whole story is narrated by colorful pictures of frogs flying on their lily pads.
The story begins on "Tuesday evening, around eight".
A group of frogs start their journey in some wetlands, then fly to the nearest town. They levitate past birds that sit on the electric wires, pausing at the kitchen window of a man eating his sandwich. The frogs pass through someone's backyard. They enter the house where an old lady sleeps in front of her television. The squadron of frogs appropriate her remote control and stare avidly at the screen. At "4:38 a.m.", they encounter a dog who tries to catch one of the frogs, but is then chased by a large group of them. At dawn, the frogs return to the pond and their normal life of resting on lily pads and swimming. Back in the city, people investigate traces left by the frogs.
The final pages of the book show "next Tuesday" around eight in the evening, with pigs hovering above the roof of a farm building.
A picture book combines visual and verbal narratives in a book format, most often aimed at young children. With the narrative told primarily through text, they are distinct from comics, which do so primarily through sequential images.
Frog and Toad is a series of easy-reader children's books, written and illustrated by American author Arnold Lobel.
Postmodern picture books are a specific genre of picture books. Characteristics of this unique type of book include non-linear narrative forms in storybooks, books that are "aware" of themselves as books and include self-referential elements, and what is known as metafiction.
Arnold Stark Lobel was an American author of children's books, including the Frog and Toad series and Mouse Soup. He wrote and illustrated these picture books as well as Fables, a 1981 Caldecott Medal winner for best-illustrated U.S. picture book. Lobel also illustrated books by other writers, including Sam the Minuteman by Nathaniel Benchley.
David Wiesner is an American illustrator and writer of children's books, known best for picture books including some that tell stories without words. As an illustrator he has won three Caldecott Medals recognizing the year's "most distinguished American picture book for children" and he was one of five finalists in 2008 for the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award, the highest recognition available for creators of children's books.
Brian Selznick is an American illustrator and author best known as the writer of The Invention of Hugo Cabret (2007), Wonderstruck (2011), The Marvels (2015) and Kaleidoscope (2021). He won the 2008 Caldecott Medal for U.S. picture book illustration recognizing The Invention of Hugo Cabret. He is also known for illustrating children's books such as the covers of Scholastic's 20th-anniversary editions of the Harry Potter series.
Flotsam is a children's wordless picture book written and illustrated by David Wiesner. Published by Clarion/Houghton Mifflin in 2006, it was the 2007 winner of the Caldecott Medal; the third win for David Wiesner. The book contains illustrations of underwater life with no text to accompany them.
Black and White is a 1990 postmodern children's picture book by David Macaulay. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company, it received mixed reviews upon its release, but it was the recipient of the Caldecott Medal for illustration in 1991. The book tells four overlapping stories, each drawn with a distinct visual style. The four stories are "Seeing Things", about a boy on a train trip by himself, "Problem Parents", about siblings whose parents behave differently one night, "A Waiting Game", about people waiting for a train, and "Udder Chaos", about cows who escape and then return to their field.
The Three Pigs is a children's picture book that was written and illustrated by David Wiesner. Published in 2001 by Houghton Mifflin/Clarion, the book is based on the traditional tale of the Three Little Pigs, though in this story they step out of their own tale and wander into others, depicted in different illustration styles. Wiesner won the 2002 Caldecott Medal for his illustrations, Wiesner's second of three such medals.
Sector 7 is a wordless picture book created and illustrated by David Wiesner. Published in 1999 by Clarion Books, it was the recipient of the Caldecott Honor for illustration in 2000.
Paul Galdone was an illustrator and writer known best for children's picture books.
The Lion & the Mouse is a 2009 nearly wordless picture book illustrated by Jerry Pinkney. This book, published by Little, Brown and Company, tells Aesop's fable of The Lion and the Mouse. In the story, a mouse's life is a spared by a lion. Later, after the lion is trapped, the mouse is able to set the lion free. Adapting the fable, with the moral that the weak can help the strong, as a wordless picture book was seen as a successful way of overcoming the brief plot generally found in the source stories. While it was Pinkney's first wordless picture book, it was not the first time he had told the story, having previously included it in his Aesop's Fables, published in 2000. Pinkney, who had received five Caldecott Honors, became the first African American to win the Caldecott Medal for his illustrations in this book. His illustrations were generally praised for their realism and sense of place. The cover illustrations, featuring the title characters but no text, drew particular praise.
A Ball for Daisy is a 2011 children's wordless picture book written and illustrated by Chris Raschka. The book tells the story of a dog named Daisy, who has a beloved ball destroyed and then replaced. Raschka won the 2012 Caldecott Medal for his illustrations in the book. The creation of the book took years but was praised for its ability to evoke emotion in the reader. A sequel, Daisy Gets Lost, was released in 2013.
This Is Not My Hat is a 2012 American children's picture book by the author and illustrator Jon Klassen. The story is told through the unreliable narration of a little fish, who has stolen a hat from a big fish and how the big fish reacts to the theft. It is a thematic follow-up to I Want My Hat Back (2011) and was meant to be a more literal sequel until Klassen took a suggestion to change which animals were in the story. The book was well received by critics who praised its dark or ironic humor which could only be understood by comparing the words of the little fish's narration against the events of the illustrations. In addition to several positive reviews, Klassen received the 2013 Caldecott Medal and the 2014 Kate Greenaway Medal becoming the first book to win both awards. This is Not My Hat was also a commercial success.
The Tortoise & the Hare is a 2013 wordless picture book of Aesop's classic fable and is illustrated by Jerry Pinkney. It is about a tortoise and a hare that compete in a foot race with the tortoise surprisingly winning.
Wolf in the Snow is a 2017 wordless picture book by Matthew Cordell. The book was favorably received by critics and won the 2018 Caldecott Medal. The story has drawn comparisons to fairy tales like Little Red Riding Hood. The nearly wordless book tells the story of a girl and wolf who each get lost in the snowstorm. Cordell used distinctive illustration techniques for the girl and the wolf.
A wordless picture book or a almost-wordless picture book is a picture book whose narrative is expressed through the illustrations.
Geoff Dunbar is an English animator and director known for his animated music video Rupert Bear and the Frog Song for Sir Paul McCartney and The World of Peter Rabbit and Friends from the stories by Beatrix Potter. He championed a hand-sketch style of animation.
Yo! Yes? is a 1993 children's picture book written and illustrated by Chris Raschka. The Book was published in March 1993 by Orchard Books.
We Are Water Protectors is a 2020 picture book written by Carole Lindstrom and illustrated by Michaela Goade. Written in response to the Dakota Access Pipeline protests, the book tells the story of an Ojibwe girl who fights against an oil pipeline in an effort to protect the water supply of her people. It was published by Roaring Brook Press on March 17, 2020. The book was well received. Critics praised its message of environmental justice, its depiction of diversity, and the watercolor illustrations, for which Goade won the 2021 Caldecott Medal, becoming the first Indigenous recipient of the award. The book also received the 2021 Jane Addams Children's Book Award winner in the Books for Younger Children category.
