90-Second Newbery: Frog and Toad Together
November 28, 2012
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I don’t know how they do it! Children’s book author/artist and superdad Aaron Zenz has a blog with his family, Bookie Woogie, in which he and his (home-schooled!) sons and daughters review books, interview writers, and generally seem to have a fantastic time. They have already had two wonderful movies featured in our 90-Second Newbery Film Festival. The first one was a shadow-puppet version of Grace Lin’s Where the Mountain Meets the Moon and the other was an animated retelling of Lloyd Alexander’s The Black Cauldron. Both up there in the highest ranks of 90-Second Newberys.
But this latest one just might be the awesomest of all! It’s one of the stories from Arnold Lobel’s Newbery Honor winning Frog and Toad Together, done entirely Muppets-style. IT IS INCREDIBLE! My words cannot do it justice. Just scroll back up and watch it. Seriously. The adorable voices, the ingenious animation, the clever visual storytelling . . . it’s just a marvel. (And that’s REAL FIRE they use in the fireplace scene. Beautiful!)
And if you liked that, you’ll love this: a video about the making of Frog and Toad Together. If you want to see truly happy children achieving awesome things with their dad, you will love every minute of this. They had me at “We’re trying to eat a snake here”:
I wrote a longer blog post about the Zenz family here. You should really head over to Bookie Woogie and read their own blog post about Frog and Toad here, complete with even more extras.
And of course this movie, and many more, will be shown at the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival screening this Sunday, December 2, at Symphony Space in New York City! Co-hosted by me and Jon Scieszka, with special guests Newbery winners Kate DiCamillo, Rita Williams-Garcia, and Margi Preus, along with artists Dan Yaccarino and Brian Floca. Full details on the Symphony Space website here.
This will be one for the ages! Don’t miss it!