We take a look at some famous amphibious creatures
1. Jeremy Fisher
The daddy of fictional frogs - Beatrix Potter’s dear little amphibian who wore a read coat (a frog coat presumably) and had a near miss with a trout while catching minnows for a dinner party to which he’d invited his good chums Isaac Newton (a newt) and Mr Alderman Ptolemy Tortoise.
2. Kermit the frog
This muppet must be the most famous of all frogs worldwide. With his endearingly skinny legs and rubbery mouth, he lives a much more ‘Hollywood’ life than most of his fellow fictional frogs. But as he’s often said, it’s not easy being green. He uses his fame to good ends though. Here he is taking the ice bucket challenge [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mmax3yEZX58] in 2014.
3. Frog from ‘Frog and Toad’
Arnold Lobel’s fictional friends, Frog and Toad, enjoy simple adventures together such as flying kites, cleaning their homes and providing short stories for early readers. Lobel’s daughter Adrianne has suggested that Frog and Toad were a little more than friends (now we’re wondering about Jeremy Fisher’s chums, too…) and were in fact the beginning of her father coming out. Lobel himself said they represented different parts of himself (the squatter brown part and the leaner green part, perhaps?)
4. The Frog Prince
The tale dates back to Roman times but the best known version is by The Brothers Grimm and tells the story of a princess whose ball is rescued from a well by a frog on the promise that he can be her constant companion. Against her better judgement she is forced by her father to hold good on her promise, but loses her temper with the frog and hurls him against a wall. Whereupon he turns into a prince and they live happily ever after. Note the lack of a kiss in this story; all that schmaltzy nonsense was added much later.
5. Oi Frog!
A recent entry but this is one frog sure to become a classic. The first in a series of rhyming books by Kes Grey and Jim Field features a bossy cat who tells Frog he must sit on a log because frogs sit on logs. He can’t sit on a stool (mules sit on stools), he can’t sit on a sofa (gophers sit on sofas) and so on. Frog objects to sitting on a log (“They’re all knobbly and give you splinters in your bottom”) but Frog’s day gets worse when he asks what dogs sit on… (no spoilers here but it’s a heck of an ending).
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