Moon and Otter and Frog

by Laura Simms, Clifford Brycelea (Illustrator)

Searching for companionship. Moon descends to the earth where he forms a friendship with Otter and chooses Little Green Ugly Frog as his wife, in a retelling of a Modoc legend

32 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1900

Reviews

[Toby · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my all time most favorite children's book. I have a signed copy.

[Thomas Doscher]

interesting story. It demonstrates a creation story, explaining why the moon shrinks and comes back each month.

[Kelly (Maybedog) · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a sweet if odd retelling of a Motoc legend. The illustrations are well done, although a big creepy. (When the moon is in his human form, for example, he has no features on his face; its just a flat blank swath of white. It reminds me of the episode of bewitched where people's faces disappear that scared the heck out of me back then.

But the story is told well, and the moral is wonderful. The moon comes to find his bride. He is presented with ten beautiful frogs all dolled up. When an ugly frog stays behind, he sends for her. She creates beauty around her and the moon tells her how beautiful she is. The other women are jealous and hurt her, but he sees her and tells her she is still very beautiful then he heals her and takes him with her.

I just love the message there! Then he takes her to the sky and an evil bear cloud eats him every month so he gets smaller and smaller, but the frog wife puts him back together with her magic. The woman is the hero of the day!

I love this story.