Such a smile of a book! I picked it off a shelf on a cold grey day in one of London’s bookstores.

It was early evening. A mother and her two children had come into the shop behind me. The little girl was intent on a finding a particular book to read, while her brother, not much younger, was only interested in the sticker books. Unluckily for him, his mother was not prepared to buy them unless he read them. As I wandered around the shelves the situation between mother and son deteriorated. Watching them exit empty-handed I wondered if Oi Frog! might have bridged the divide.

In the book Frog is looking for somewhere to sit, but a bossy cat is monitoring Frog’s seating choices, making sure that he is directed to the appropriate place. Frog however, does not see why there should be any restrictions on where he sits, and begins to ask a string of questions. Cat, frustrated by Frog’s lack of obedience, then goes through a list, pointing out which animals should sit where. It soon becomes clear that the seats are allocated according to rhyme rather than reason or comfort, the illustrations getting more and more joyfully ridiculous. But still the ever-challenging Frog keeps up with his questions, interrupting the list occasionally to ask about a particular animal, and where that might sit. In the end it is his final question that brings the book to a close, the last page of illustration saying everything that Frog cannot.

I flipped through the book several times in the store. My first scan was quick, and so was the second, and then when I got it home I started to look more slowly, smiling at every page. The idea seems simple, and the rhymes seem obvious, but combined with the illustrations and the ending, this little book is to me a work of art. I hope it will be one that holds its place happily in any pile or shelf of children’s picture books for many years to come.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023