Leap, Frog, Leap!

Toddler-PreS—Florian's newest board books offer cheery introductions to the natural world for preschoolers and toddlers. Leap, Frog, Leap! combines action verbs with animals, with phrases such as "Race, rabbit, race!" and "Spin, spider, spin!" Once I Was a Pollywog focuses on the names of baby animals and what they grow up to be ("Once I was a cub…but now I am a bear."). Each book concludes with a human character—Leap, Frog, Leap! with a child sleeping and Pollywog with a baby who grows up into a boy. Both titles use rhymes and succinct text to help create a bouncy, simple rhythm for young readers to enjoy. Bakos's illustrations are bright and colorful, especially on the glossy board book pages, matching Florian's sprightly narrative. Even more dangerous animals, like a cheetah and an alligator, are drawn as warm, jovial, friendly characters rather than as scary or menacing, making the illustrations further suitable for preschoolers. In Pollywog, Florian offers some different creatures and terms with which children may not be as familiar, such as a leveret, which becomes a hare, and a gosling, which becomes a goose, providing more potential learning opportunities for young readers.