Reading William Bee’s Beware of the Frog to a group of older preschoolers made me feel like I was in a commercial promoting early literacy. If your experience with the book in a storytime setting is anything like mine, it will be the kids themselves sharing the messages.

Mrs. Collywobbles is a sweet little old lady who lives on the edge of a haunted wood, protected by her pet frog. Mrs. Collywobbles gives a fair warning to trespassers, posting a “Beware of the Frog” sign on her front gate. The troll, ogre, and goblin characters in the book can read. It’s just that they don’t believe the sign…. Both children and their caregivers will enjoy Bee’s off-beat humor and surprise ending.

The book especially lends itself to promoting print awareness . The typography in the book is striking enough that single words (“gobble” , “burp”) are given their own pages, allowing children to “read” along with you, and notice that the larger the creature the frog eats, the more times the word “gobble”  appears. Another fun detail is that the title of the book appears backwards on the back cover. 

Beware of the Frog is also abundant with opportunities to promote phonological awareness . The goblin, ogre and troll each sing a crazy song to let the reader know what they intend to do to Mrs. Collywobbles. The rhymes and repetition allow children to easily predict the next words in their songs: Dum-de-dum, dum-de-dummy, I’ve got a very, very hungry tummy….

Juliet Morefield