Ready... Set... Frog! by Katharine Mitropoulos
What's It About?
Frog needs to practice if he wants to win the town obstacle race. But every time he tries, he gets interrupted! Frog can't help his friends and still make time to practice... or can he?Setting one’s priorities. It’s something with which many grownups have trouble. Yet a mother of two with degrees in psychology, speech-language pathology and linguistics is doing her part to help children understand the concept at an early age.
Ready…Set…Frog! by Katharine Mitropoulos, along with cute illustrations by Laura Watson, is a delightful story geared to 4-to-8-year-olds in which our main character, Frog, has to choose between helping his friends and completing a personal task.
The story teaches three core themes: flexibility, service and the idea that winning isn’t everything.
Challenges & Obstacles
Frog is a young animal who loves challenges. When his mother alerts him to an obstacle course at an upcoming neighborhood fair, that’s all he needs to hear. He turns all his attention to setting up “obstacles” — mountains of stone, bridges of sticks and the like. But just as he settles in to practice, he is interrupted — again and again and again.
His friend Mole needs Frog to hop to the top of a tree and pluck an apple for Mole’s apple pie. Giraffe needs Frog’s help putting on a hat. Kitten was playing on the lily pads and gets stuck on the other side of the pond.
In each instance, Frog happily steps away from practicing for the obstacle course and comes to the aid of his friends.
Only when he returns home, he tells his mother he has lost interest in the race because he has not had time to practice.
Having heard about why Frog was distracted, his mother replies, “You’ve been practicing all along. Just not the way you planned to.” She tells Frog how he chose to be kind, which was very admirable. “But it’s OK to say no sometimes. It takes practice helping yourself and helping others.”
Optimism & Patience
Frog enters the race and does well — maybe not as well as he would have liked. But he was still excited — he had showed kindness to those in need and had learned some valuable lessons.
As readers observe, Frog works through his immediate frustrations when things don’t go as planned and adapts to a changing situation with optimism and patience.
“The difficult decision of choosing between helping a friend and completing a task is a challenge that Frog encounters throughout the story,” says Mitropoulos. “Frog learns that it feels good inside to lend a hand to someone in need, and sometimes through helping others, you end up helping yourself in the process.”
Ready… Set… Frog! is a beautifully crafted story for children. It describes a fun activity, introduces many good friends and helps guide children on a subject that is a true balancing act.
It’s great to care and look out for your friends, but sometimes it’s just as important to look out for yourself. In the end, regardless of the choice and regardless of where Frog finishes in the race, everybody wins.
About Katharine Mitropoulos:
Katharine Mitropoulos is a wife and a mom of two who lives with her family in Michigan. She is a trained speech-language pathologist. Her degrees in psychology, speech-language pathology and linguistics sparked her interest in children’s literature. When she’s not writing books about Frog and his friends, you can find Katharine building furniture in her family woodshop, eating ice cream with rainbow sprinkles, or running road races all over the state. Visit www.setsailpress.com.
