LITTLE FROG AND THE SCARY AUTUMN THING

A young frog gets some parental help for her anxiety when green leaves turn red, gold, and purple.

Little Frog shudders at the color changes in her comfortable green world, but taking heart from Mama Frog’s “Most things that are scary are only just new,” she ventures out of the pond and into the woods. Falling leaves cause her courage to fail temporarily—but then the familiar voices of the wind, of a squirrel, and most particularly of Papa Frog, who invites her to slide down a leafy pile with him, lead her to conclude that “Red and gold and orange are not scary at all.” Back home the two hop, arm in arm, for a dinner of Mama Frog’s hot shoo-fly pie. In the illustrations, rich colors underscore the intensity of Little Frog’s feelings, as the sunlit greens of reeds and lily pads give way to showers of leaves that, in the shadowed woods, glow with autumn reds and golds. Just to make it easier for two-legged younglings to relate, Shi outfits Little Frog with a long red scarf and, in keeping with the assigned roles, gives Mama Frog blue eyes and a bead necklace.

A low-key way of introducing the idea of change, in nature or otherwise.