Frog Goes to Dinner

Mayer, M. (1974). Frog goes to dinner. New York, NY: Pied Piper Book.

Brief Annotation: This story is a very unique story in that it is a wordless picture book, so in many ways you can create your own version of the story with words. The pictures show the story of a young boy who goes to dinner with his family. They go to a very fancy restaurant, but the young boy is unaware that his pet frog has snuck into the dinner too. The frog creates a lot of trouble and ruins the music by jumping into the instruments. The frog also hides in people's food and lands into the young boys dads drink. The waiter then is about to throw the frog outside when the young boy claims his frog. Their family is then asked to leave and the parents are very upset with the young boy. Once they are home however, the boy thinks it's pretty funny and seems to enjoy that the frog came to dinner.

Genre: Picture Book- Wordless

Grade level: Birth-Primary

Readers who will like this: This is a great book for students who are wanting to be creative and think of their own story. Anyone who wants to read a short story and add some creativity to it. I think that for really young ages this is a great book because it makes them have to look at the pictures to understand what is happening in the book.

Response/Rating (1-4) 4, I loved this book! I thought that it was creative and the pictures were really fun to look at. I think that it's a funny story, one that all kids will think is funny, and it's great that they have to be creative in order to tell the story out loud.

One question you would ask before a read aloud: I would ask the kids “ what kinds of pets do you have?” “Would you invite any of them to a fancy dinner?” I think these questions are fairly forward, but with the ages and the way that the story will need to be told, it is ok to have some direction for them.