Customer Reviews

The Great Frog Race and Other Poems

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Quiddle with words, swing to the tree tops with ghosts, jump and giggle with frogs. Kristine O'Connell George must surely be a sprite who has a pixie philosophy seasoned with an empathic maturity. Kids love these poems and so do I! Read them aloud, one a night, little gifts for your child to imagine just before sleep. The Kate Kiesler illustrations light up the page and capture attention.

This book is a must buy!

A wonderful thing happened to me as I read Kristine O'Connell George's poems. I discovered a younger, quirkier me--the child I once was. There she was, taking the time to talk to a tree, to notice the polliwogs, "stubby as toes", to stand in the rain's "strands of wet thread". And there she was again, dreaming of "wind in my hair" atop an old nag that wasn't going anywhere.

I like to remember myself as a kid who saw life and movement and humor in the most surprising of places. Surely that was Kristine George, too. Even now she doesn't think it's odd to imagine the "strong-jawed grin" of a monkey wrench or the loyalty of an old metal bucket, or the dreams of the garden hose as it "wonders what to be when it grows up". Maybe if Kristine and I had been best friends then, or if I'd had this lovely, compassionate, dream-affirming book, I'd have taken the time to write more poems. I would have been inspired to "quiddle" with words and images that gave me pleasure. And that's just what the poet invites her readers to do.

Every time I read this book I marvel at the perfection of the poetic images. My ear takes pleasure in the music of the words. I am drawn into the lush, evocative paintings by Kate Kiesler.

But best of all, there's The Great Frog Race of my childhood, "over quickly", but recaptured beautifully in this book

a wonderful roller coaster ride for both children andadults. you will be enthralled as you read these beautiful poems ofchildhood discovery,written with beautiful and heart tugging imagery, humor, and prose. Run and add to your shopping cart.