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SCRITCH SCRATCH SCRAWW PLOP by Kitty Crowther

SCRITCH SCRATCH SCRAWW PLOP

by Kitty Crowther ; illustrated by Kitty Crowther ; translated by Claudia Zoe Bedrick

Pub Date: Oct. 27th, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-59270-179-7
Publisher: Enchanted Lion Books

In this French import, a little frog is afraid of nighttime sounds until his parents help him feel safe.

Even though his mother and father help him through his bedtime routine, little Jeremy doesn’t want to go to bed alone in his room after his father reads to him. He hears the titular noises—“scratch scratch scraww plop”—and runs to his parents’ bedroom. The setting of the anthropomorphic frogs’ home has a delightful detail befitting its inhabitants’ amphibious nature: the floors are submerged in a small depth of water. This is apparent in the cover art and in illustrations devoted to interior scenes. The first time Jeremy splashes over to his parents’ room, Dad brings him back to his bed. (As a side note, textual inconsistency refers to the father as both Dad and Daddy and to the mother as both Mama and Mom). This happens twice more, and on the last time Jeremy crawls into his parents’ bed. Now his father can’t sleep, and so he goes outside to sleep on a lily pad. Once there, he too hears the sounds that frightened his son. He brings Jeremy out to the lily pad, and there they discover the neighborly sources of these sounds (a mole, a bird, and a fish) before drifting off to sleep, themselves adrift.

A sweet treatment of a common theme.

(Picture book. 2-6)