The Frogs Begging for a King (Chinese)

Abstract

This is a very pleasing series of twelve 12-page pamphlets of unusual proportions, namely just under 10 inches square. Lively expressiveness is the characteristic of this book and its art. A reader may not know what those frogs are so excited about on the first page, but their intense prayer is clear in the next illustration, as is their panic as a log comes crashing into their pond in the following illustration. In the next illustration several of the frogs are beating and kicking the log and tearing off a part of its branches. In the foreground one frog prays…. Every frog is on the alert in the next illustration, as a crane arrives at the pond. Soon enough he has one of the helpless frogs in his bill, and the others are terrified. The last picture is nicely suggestive: the crane flies away from what looks like a frogless pond. Well done to both Lanthom Nammontree and to the publishers of such a fine fable book! First published in Thailand in 2007 by Class Publishing House, Bangkok.