Official Review: Calamity Sam and the great Frog Roundup

[MsTri]

[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Calamity Sam and the great Frog Roundup" by julie reathaford.]

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2 out of 4 stars

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Frog legs are a delicacy that I'm not interested in trying. However, in Julie Reathaford's book, Calamity Sam & the Great Frog Roundup, citizens are threatening to have frogs at the Annual Pig Roast if the amphibians don't get their population under control. It's therefore up to Calamity Sam to come up with a solution that will please both the citizens and the frog populace. Will Calamity Sam convince the Frog King to move to another area, or will frog legs be on the menu?

This book had a wonderful lesson of negotiation and compromise for its young readers. After Mayor Tom asked Calamity Sam to speak to the Frog King on the people's behalf, he went back to town to get the citizens to calm down and see reason. Meanwhile, Calamity Sam negotiated with the King. The ultimate solution to the problem made sense, and everyone ended up happy, which is the goal in compromising.

Sadly, I didn't really take to the main character. Calamity Sam was a little harsh in her way of speaking, but I think that was supposed to be a part of her personality since that's what comes to mind when seeing someone called "Calamity". The Frog King was also stubborn, but he had good reason to be. The pacing, though, was on-point and never felt either rushed or draggy.

It's also important that children's books have nice illustrations. The pictures in this tale were colorful and cute and took up their whole page, leaving the other pages for the text. My only complaint about the pictures was that Calamity Sam never changed clothes, even though the tale took place over at least three days. Additionally, when I saw the age group for this book (7-10 yrs), I thought the text would be sparse, leaving more room for pictures, but that was not the case. It was actually the opposite; the text was plentiful and more in keeping with a book for children on the higher end of that age range, if not slightly higher. The words used were also more complex than one would usually find in a book made for 2nd or 3rd-graders but make for a good opportunity to add to a reader's vocabulary. I'll also take this opportunity to note that the text was very small, and I had to try three methods of reading the .pdf before I could do so without squinting and getting a headache. This is definitely not a good thing for a children's book.

I did like the author's writing style though. It was very casual and sounded as if the author was actually orally telling the story rather than writing it. I could even picture Ms. Reathaford with a room full of children, captivated by her tale.

To me, the most important thing about a children's book is that the grammar be perfect so the young learn good writing habits while reading. That was definitely not the case here. I'd found the first ten errors before the third page. These mistakes were of every type possible, from misspellings to incorrect punctuation usage to the lack of apostrophes when showing possession, not to mention capitalization mistakes and extra spaces throughout the writing. In addition, there were fragments instead of sentences, run-on sentences, and sentences not ending when they should. One sentence that really had me shaking my head was as follows:

The Frog King is sitting on his throne made out of the palest green lily pads and being fanned by one of his smaller loyal subjects, every now and then he throws a bucket of pond water to keep the Frog Kings skin wet.

Even worse was the author's occasional failure to change paragraphs when changing speakers. Another formatting issue was found at the end of Chapter Two and beginning of Chapter Five, both of which consisted of only one paragraph. Rather than the paragraphs being placed at the tops of the pages, they were centered in the middle, making the pages look weird. The most egregious error, however, was in changing the tense of the story; the majority of the tale was written in present-tense, but there were large sections where the tense would suddenly jump to past before returning to present. Lastly - and this is minor compared to the other errors - Calamity Sam had a habit of dropping the 'g' at the end of verbs. I had no problem with that, but sometimes there was an apostrophe after the 'n' and sometimes not, thereby taking away from the consistency. I would very strongly urge the author to take this book to a professional editor for a deep scrubbing so it can come out a polished gem.

Due to the calamitous grammatical and formatting issues, I'm giving Calamity Sam & the Great Frog Roundup 2 out of 4 stars. I'm also not recommending that any children read this book until the grammar is brought up to speed. It may be okay, however, if adults just read the tale to their children or students without the youngsters reading along. Adults who are still children at heart and can overlook writing errors for 28 pages may also want to give this one a whirl.

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Calamity Sam and the great Frog Roundup
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon

Like MsTri's review? Post a comment saying so!

[kandscreeley]

Wow! That's a lot of errors for a short children's book. Definitely sad! Children's books should be about perfect because children just don't know the difference. Hopefully the author will get the book a great editor and try again. Thanks!

[Samantha Simoneau]

Due to the calamitous grammatical and formatting issues ...

Ha, nice touch. Great review!

[gen_g]

Multiple errors in grammar as a whole is a dealbreaker for me, especially so in a children's book - since reading is usually one of the most important/common ways for children to learn the intricacies of a language. Thanks for the detailed review!

[Ktwills79]

I agree wholeheartedly with the issue about grammar--as an aspiring children's book writer I know how important it is to get it 100% right since they pick up so much of their language from books. It's also important to really nail your age-range down when writing for children. This book sounds basically like a chapter book with lots of pictures (which is cool, though not usually done). The reviewer mentions that there are chapters and that the intended age range is 7-10 which is typically too old for picture books. Sounds like a funny idea for a story and the author clearly has talent, she just needs to pick an age range and get a good editor!

[LaurenHaupt]

I agree with the illustrations. Kids at that age still like a lot of pictures in their books. The more the better.

[Sahani Nimandra]

Colourful illustration always helps to keep the kids attention towards the book since kids usually have a short attention span. Too bad about the errors though. A book that reflects about negotiating and compromising skills is very important, this will help to develop the kids negotiating and compromising skills which directly develops their emotional intelligence. Thank you for your review!

[Marissa Michael]

The book has the potential to attract the interest of the children but the fact this book hasn't professionally edited overshadowed this potential for a short Children's book. I agree with this statement for the benefit of this author, "I would very strongly urge the author to take this book to a professional editor for a deep scrubbing so it can come out a polished gem."
Thank you for your detailed review!

[daniya__shah3]

I think proper formatting and minor changes in the context would have made this one better. Also, a harsh character is not really a got idol for kids who will be reading this since kids possess a naïve mind and this might not leave a good impression on them.

[kfwilson6]

EEk, this does sound like quite the calamitous story. I didn't really like the whole thing about having frog legs at the annual gathering. That sounds a bit morbid for a children's book.

[pinchess07]

It's a shame about the grammar, since the plot looks really interesting. Hopefully the book gets revised by a professional editor. Your review was really detailed and helpful.

[Sanju Lali]

i too never eaten frogs but was curious to know about experiences of people who eat it. nice review of the book indeed.
but also sad to note that this book has grammatical errors which makes reading little time consuming and head scratching

[OloladeO]

Hmm... Sad about the errors. Children's books should be void of them. I trust the author to fix them upon seeing this review. Thanks for the honest review.

[booklysis]

Children's book should have been error free. Moreover, the concept is not that nice even.