Frog on His Own (A Boy, a Dog, and a Frog) (2024)

I am a speech-language pathologist and I like to use wordless (or almost wordless) books with my preschoolers sometimes to practice their speech sounds in a conversational context, as well as informally assess their sentence structure and story telling skills.

This is the story of a frog who has gotten away from the boy who was carrying him. The frog gets into some mischief throughout his adventure, such as trying to eat a bee and getting stung, disrupting a picnic, breaking a toy boat, and drinking a baby bottle.

My students did not seem to like this book as much as other ones, which surprised me. I think it may be because the pictures are not in color. I think the pictures are very well done and full of detail and emotion. Mayer has quite a few books like this that tell a story without words and they are all beautifully done.

Great preschool book.

December at Puss Reboots seems to be turning out to be Mercer Mayer month. I'm back with a third review of one of his picture books.

Mercer Mayer is probably best known for his Little Critter Books. Back when I was a child he had a delightful picture book series featuring a boy, a dog and a frog. At our most recent trip to the library, Harriet found a reissued copy of one of these, Frog on His Own and was immediately drawn to it.

The boy and his dog are in a park with the frog in a bucket. The frog sees his chance at freedom and hops away. Unfortunately for the frog, the park is full of all sorts of obstacles and dangers including a cute but hungry cat.

Frog on His Own is literally a picture book. It has 31 pages of Mercer's ornate pen and ink drawings and absolutely no accompanying text.

When Harriet isn't enjoying the book by herself, something she is wont to do now that her brother can read, I've enjoyed a few strolls through the book myself. There's enough to each page to make up any number of stories from what Mercer has drawn.

The Boy, Dog and Frog picture book series:

* A Boy, a Dog and a Frog (1967)
* Frog, Where Are You? (1969)
* A Boy, a Dog, a Frog, and a Friend (1971)
* Frog on His Own (1973)
* Frog Goes to Dinner (1974)
* One Frog Too Many (1975)

Title: Frog On His Own
Author: Mercer Mayer
Genre: Children’s

Challenges: To Be Continued…Challenge, PB & J Challenge, 101 Books in 1001 Days Challenge, What an Animal II, Read and Review Challenge 2010, Young Readers Reading Challenge 2010, 2010 Support Your Local Library Reading Challenge, 100 + Reading Challenge, Pages Read 2010, A to Z challenge, What An Animal III Challenge

Rating: 4/5
No. of Pages: 32
Published: 1973

Back Cover: Frog on his own…..

Mine: This is a great new series (to me) and of course it has frogs in it, so how can I not read it?

Once again the illustrations can’t help but tell the wonderful story of how frog discovers what it’s like to be on his own. It’s not quite what he thinks – he realized he should be eating wasps, scaring people will get you in trouble and cats can chase. Finally dog comes to the rescue to run the cat off and boy and frog are reunited.

In this book a boy goes to the park with his pet dog and frog, leaves the frog alond to find whatever trouble he can. The frog flicks out his tongue to catch an insect, which turns out to be a bee. He disturbs a young couple's picnic, sinks a young boy's toy boat (retrieved by his annoyed mother), and joins a baby in its crib (swiping a sip of its bottle). This is a kind of visual comedy perfect for young children, and simple enough that after a parent helps with interpretation the first time, it may be fully enjoyed alone.

These books about a boy and his frog are great for preschoolers and young readers; they are sweet, funny stories with a lot of room for young readers to do the storytelling/narration based on the expressive drawings. Great for all ages, and family sharing.

A boy and his pets (a dog, a frog, and a turtle) go for a walk. The frog jumps out to explore on his own and have adventures. Everything goes fine for frog until he's caught by a big, hungry cat! The boy ends up saving the frog and they go off on their merry way.

This wordless picture book would be ideal for a Kindergarten classroom during free reading time. Students could build up confidence by "reading" a book on their own. This is also a great introduction to Mercer Mayer's writing style which would be useful when reading his other books.

A complete picture book - no words at all. Loved it! We see frog as he goes throughout his day and the mischief that he gets into!

More of the frog, by Mercer Mayer. This is a children's book, and I watched it as a video. Cute!

No words so my little ones could "read" like their big sister. I love the frog books by Mercer Mayer.

mercer Mayer does a fabulous job of telling a fun story without any words. Kids would love this book.

wordless picture books

great illustrations.

A good wordless book, but Mayer's later book, One Frog Too Many, offers better laughs and facial expressions.

Mentioned in: Treasury of Read-Alouds - Wordless Books

A pet frog decides to go on an adventure, but learns that there's no place like home. A delightful and fun wordless book.

Originally published in 1973. Read on Internet Archive. Did not purchase the book.

***A WORDLESS BOOK***

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NOT LISTED IN AR PROGRAM
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Wordless book! I've got a grandkid falling behind in reading. I found all of Mercer Mayer's books online at Internet Archive on 8/26/2023. I would have purchased some on Amazon or Thriftbooks.com, or anywhere else, but, I actually need books with WORDS.

Available online at Internet Archive:

https://archive.org/details/frogonhis...

This is a good book that would introduce students into creative thinking and knowing what is going on through a story without words. There are also themes that can be discussed as a class that are important like friendship and problem solving. I would like to introduce this book into a classroom with young kids.

A silent black-and-white book. A boy carries his pet frog into a park. The frog escapes and gets into mischief. I like the old-fashioned pen-and-ink crosshatching style. Some of the storytelling wasn't clear.

RIBBITASTIC!

I love how happy the frog looked after he had been rescued.

Saw video adaptation, but still want to get physical book from ILL. Video wasn't what I was hoping for. Too much muchness.

This is a wordless picture book about a boy who has a frog, a turtle, and a dog. He takes them on a walk, and the frog hops away. The frog has its own adventure while he is away from the boy. He is stung by a bee, chased by a cat, and sinks a toy boat. By the end of the book he is back with the boy.

I liked the scenes of the mischief that the frog got into. I like the outdoors, and this whole story takes place outside. The pictures are simple but well done.

I think this would be a great book for which students could write a narrative or tell the story orally. It could even be used by multiple students where the narrator changes after every page.

I've inadvertently stumbled into another wordless book. This is an acclaimed book. We tried to "read" it today and I couldn't come up with a story. Perhaps I lack imagination. The drawings were really good.

Cute but not quite as funny/I didn't like as much as the other books in the series.

a cute story about learning to rely on yourself

Mercer Mayer of the Critter series also has this smaller series of wordless books. The action is fun, but in this one it always seems to be at someone else's expense.