He later received additional training at the Art Students League in New York City. During his teenage years, he attended the Honolulu Academy of Arts. They always help remind me of what it was like.'īorn in Little Rock, Arkansas, Mercer Mayer spent his childhood hunting lizards and snakes in the swamps near his home. 'Now that I'm a big kid, I write about things that happen now, especially with my own children. 'Most of my books are about things that happened to me when I was a little kid,' says Mercer. Open almost any of the award-winning author/illustrator's books, and out may pop dragons, cuddly monsters, wonderful creatures, and endearing critters. (insert full body shiver here.Mercer Mayer began writing and illustrating children's books in 1966, and since that time, he has published over 300 titles. Mercer's frog books might be the single most important reason why I love having a boy. I don't know about your public library, but ours has a 'small books' section where you can find these guys and Beatrix Potter and Lois Lenski and others, and we always end up there with the wee little titles spilling out on the floor, laughing our butts off and having the best time.

Man, I can't get enough of that adorable sour puss, sooooo older sibling for sure! '67, Frog, Where Are You? '69, A Boy, a Dog, a Frog, and a Friend '71, Frog on His Own '73, Frog Goes to Dinner '74), rocks my world pretty hard, and no child's library is complete without it.Īs it pretty obvious in the pictures, when the boy gets gifted a new baby frog, his older frog buddy gets miffed and spends the entire book trying to sobotage his cuter, younger counterpart. these two pictures ~ both of the one frog jealously torturing the other ~ are worth the admission price alone. I am reviewing this one in particular, because by the time it was published in 1975, Mercer's signature look had taken hold, and all of the characters are way more stylized and complete than in the first book. Often considered one of the first illustrators to use the wordless picture book format, this book was the last in Mercer's famous frog series that started with his first published book ever, A Boy, a Dog and a Frog.

Frog on His Own by Mercer Mayer