To celebrate CBCA Book Week 2018, I’ve asked some of my favourite bloggers to share a book that one or more of their children adores. Rebecca from Story Addict‘s son knows every word of this funny one!
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I can’t remember who gave my son Oi Frog! I’m not even entirely sure how long we’ve had it in the house. I do know that my husband and I have read it approximately eleventy-billion times. Mr 6 has memorised every word and calls us on it if we get a single syllable out of place.
Fortunately it’s a fabulous book.
Arising from the old adage ‘the cat sat on the mat’, Oi Frog is a conversation between a frog who doesn’t want to sit on a log (they’re “all nobbly and uncomfortable. And they can give you splinters in your bottom.”) and a cat who insists that he must sit on a log and nothing else. That’s just the way it is, and the way it ought to be.
The pictures are hilarious – brightly coloured and exaggerated expressions. The frog bouncing around with splinters in his bottom, eyeballs turned inwards and watering with lips pursed, never fails to incite many giggles.
Frog is determined to talk the cat into letting him find a nicer place for his derriere than a log. “Perhaps I could sit on a stool?” he suggests. “Mules sit on stools,” the cat retorts. The pictured mule looks rather cranky to be disturbed by a surprised frog climbing up a leg of his stool! A sofa? Nope, they’re for gophers. A chair? Hares…
The rhyming games go on and on until the imperious cat is even ruling out coats (they’re for goats), pillars (gorillas, didn’t you know?) and even flutes (apparently that’s where newts gather).
One night I went to investigate the raucous hilarity coming from Mr 6’s bedroom. It was Dad’s turn to read Oi Frog! and he’d decided to spice things up a little by flipping the rhymes. Mr 6 was having an hilarious time picturing poles sitting on moles and forks sitting on storks.
Oi Frog! has garnered plenty of critical acclaim as well as delighting children. It was nominated for the Kate Greenaway Medal in 2012 while its sequel, Oi Dog!, was shortlisted for the Children’s Book of the Year at the British Book Awards and the Sainsbury’s Children’s Book Award 2016. It was all a rather surprising turn of events for a writer (Kes Gray) who worked in TV advertising for 20 years and an illustrator (Jim Field) who was a former animation director for 9 years.
Oi Frog! by Kes Gray and Jim Field was published by Hodder Children’s Books in 2015. It’s now available in hardback, paperback and audio book and has spawned a whole series, including Oi Cat!, Oi Dog! and Oi Duck-Billed Platypus!.
Rebecca Bowyer is a Melbourne writer and mum of two avid readers aged 6 and 8. She writes about books, parenting and writing over at Seeing the Lighter Side.