Leaps and Bounce

PreS-Gr 1—A lighthearted rhyming story about growing up. In the pond are hundreds of eggs, "round and spotted,/polka-dotted." Who's inside, and who will they be? Spring is here, and it has brought a mystery to this pond, where "dragonflies investigate [and] ducklings stop [to] watch and wait." Soon there are subtle changes inside the eggs, and the little dots inside begin to grow tails in their first step to becoming real frogs. Now they burst forth from the egg sac and zip through the pond's waters. Before long, two legs appear and then two more. Now the "clever little divers [are] dashing. Kicking, flicking,/splishing, splashing!" And, finally, as new frogs, they enjoy sitting on logs by the edge of the pond. And just like everything else in nature, "few of us grow up unchanged." The cartoonlike drawings that accompany this rhyming text are done in pen and ink, mostly in hues of green and other colors of nature. The humorous illustrations set the mood.