January Focus Book

Waiting for Froggo by Alice Courtley

A hilarious, minimalist story about patience and the ups and downs of waiting from author-illustrator, Alice Courtley.

Rabbit is waiting for Froggo, quietly and patiently. Mouse is also waiting for Froggo, but not so quietly or patiently... 'What's a Froggo?' Mouse asks. 'When will they get here? What do they look like?' Rabbit urges Mouse to wait but as more animals show up to join them, things start to get more busy and chaotic.

Just as Rabbit is about to lose his temper, Mouse asks the biggest question: what if Froggo doesn't come? Inspired by Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, Alice Courtley's Waiting for Froggo is a minimalist story of the ups and downs of waiting with brilliantly expressive characters and charming deadpan humour. Froggo is definitely worth waiting for!

*Description and image taken from waterstones.com - no copyright intended*

During January, I used Books are my Bag's Children's Book of the Month as a focus title for us to explore at home. Waiting for Froggo by Alice Courtley is a beautifully simple picture book about patience which we enjoyed reading together, multiple times I might point out, and I love that Bear is so into books. He loves studying the illustrations and often notices things that I don't at first, then after a couple of reads, he begins to remember the repetitive bits and often joins in :)

My intentions were to plan activities around the themes of the book, the main one being patience, but I struggled to come up with much. So instead, I made sure to point out when we were using patience at home, not just with Bear, but pointing out when myself or The Cub showed patience too. 

We also had fun with a story basket during National Storytelling week where we had the characters to use alongside telling the story, which both boys really enjoyed.

To end the focus on this title, Bear and I did a book review, which we have done for a few books before this in my approach to having Bear think about what it is we've read before we move on to chapter book read alouds that will take more than one sitting. He generally enjoys writing these, and I love hearing what he remembers and which parts were his favourite. 

We print and cut out the front cover to stick on, and then I ask Bear what the title was and I remind him of the author. Bear gives the book a star rating, which he colours in... I think all books have had 5 stars so far!

Then I ask him what the story was about, and for this book, he needed very little prompting from me, though he did look through the book and told me from the illustrations. I also ask him what his favourite part and/or character was from the story, and I loved his answer for this book :)

I realised at the start of February, that Books are my Bag's Children's Book of the Month is not always going to be a picture book, and this month's book is not age appropriate for Bear and The Cub, so we have improvised and I have chosen a title from the new releases at work that have made the shortlist for the Waterstones Children's Book Prize. In my opinion, it's a strong contender too!

February's book is Wolf and Bear by Kate Rolfe, which I will post more about at the end of the month so you can see what we get up to :)

Have you read Waiting for Froggo? We'd love to hear what you thought!

Momma Bear x