Product Description
A little girl pictures the things her parents talk about, such as a king who rained, bear feet, and the foot prince in the snow. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (21)

Children may not get the puns, that is until you explain it.
Our youngest loves this book. Maybe its because the artwork by Fred Gwynne ( Frankenstein in the Munsters) is superb. She is too young to get many of the puns. Thats ok, once I explained it to her she got it. Now every time we read it she recites why the pun is funny. It has helped her come up with her own puns. This was not an expected outcome of purchasing this book, but we love it!

Thanks Fred for leaving us with more than a character on TV.

Overall a fun book to read at bedtime.

Thank you for reading my review.

Kids don't get it
I hate to post a negative review, especially since the author is someone I respect, but I just need to put this out there so other librarians like me won't make the same mistake--we just don't have the budget to afford books that won't circulate. I was excited to order this book--the premise is great and I figured teachers would love this in their classrooms--but it's so old-fashioned that kids today just don't get the jokes and haven't heard the sayings. Like sheep gambling on the lawn and the family coat-of-arms. It's targeted for young children but even the fourth-graders at my school didn't get most of the text. I think this book is amusing to adults, but is not for today's kids.

A Children's Book with an important message for adults
Fred Gwynn is the original trail blazer who proved that actors can do so much more than act. As a successful actor during the 1950's and beyond, he starred in various movies as well as "The Munster's" and "Car 54 Where Are You" Television series'. As a gifted writer and artist, Mr. Gwynn gave us this children's book treasure that should be in every child's library. There is no obvious storyline, yet the book is impossible to put down once you start it. At times it is difficult to turn the pages because you are laughing so hard, and as a bedtime story, The King Who Rained will give you many memorable moments with your children.
This is one of my favorite children's books of all time. I love the simple but colorful illustrations. Because of the beautiful pictures this is a wonderful bedtime story for newborns and toddlers. There is no "moral to the story" geared towards children so it would just be a "learn to read" tool for older children who are starting to sound out words and put together sentences.
There is an underlying message, but it is for us adults. After all, when a child is told the name of the book, the image created has nothing to do with how long the king remained in power. The front cover which portrays a king with rain pouring off of his royal robes is more likely to be the image burned into the child's memory even if they never even saw that picture. Language gives us multiple meanings and spellings for so many words. The context within which a thought occurs often is needed to explain what we mean. This creates an impossible challenge for young children struggling to learn just one meaning for each word. So to them "raining" has to do with water coming down from the sky, and nothing more. A king reigning could mean nothing more than royal robes pouring out raindrops. The message of this book to parents, teachers, baby sitters, pastors, and adults in general is to be careful how we talk to kids regarding the use of words with double meanings. The message we send may be very different from the one we intended. After all, we don't want our babies to think that we really have a "frog in our throat".
Yes Mr. Gwynn was truly a "trail blazer". He set the standard that allowed an actor to become the Governor of California and later The President of The United States. And just for "good measure" he gave us this wonderful book.

Love it!
This is a fun story for teaching figurative language and homonyms in my third grade classroom. It makes them laugh and think!
I also recommend "Chocolate Moose for Dinner" for the same teaching purposes.

Love it!
Such a fun book for both parent and child!Highly recommend adding this to your library! ... Read more

Product Description
"Mommy says Dad is a little pigeon toad." This and other homonyms are interpreted with literal illogic in zany illustrations by the multitalented Fred Gwynne. Full-color illustrations. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

A Little Pigeon Toad
This book was purchased for the enjoyment of young elementary school children.We have 3 others in the classrom by Gwynne and the children love the play on words in all of his books.

Cute book!
I remember the Moose book, so this was fun to read with my kids for the first time - I love play on language!!

Humorous Homonyms
A Little Pigeon Toad is a humorous picture book written as a series of single sentence vignettes that take place in a little girl's mind. Homonyms are used throughout this story and they confuse the little girl who interprets what her parents say differently than what they meant. Gwynne's book illustrates our ridiculous English language; for example, "Daddy wants a pool table," shows a table with a pool in it and everyone's swimming. The illustrations are literal interpretations of what the little girl thinks her parents are saying.
The words, easy to read, short and very simple, are intended for an audience between grades 3 and 5. But, adults or older readers would also enjoy this book.
Gwynne wrote and illustrated 13 other books: The King Who Rained, A Chocolate Moose For Dinner, The Sixteen Hand Horse, The Kings Trousers, and Easy to See Why. He attended Harvard and worked as an illustrator before starring as Herman on the TV show "The Munsters". Gwynne died in 1993.

Fun With English.
This is a delightful book to read to and with children. It introduces them not only to some of the idiosyncracies of the English language, but also to verbal humor. Fred Gwynne was not only a wonderful comic actor, but he was a great artist as well; the pictures in these books are soft and playful augmenting the confused phrases in the young girl's mind. Kids love this book and it is a joy to read.

playing with language and taking it literally!!
One of the masters of illustrating the ridiculousness of English, Mr. Gwynne has done it again by taking common idioms and interpreting them literally.The reader accompanies a young girl through all sorts of different, funny English sayings and phrases and takes them all literally.In the one that is the title of the book, she stand off in a field looking at a strange animal that has the body, legs and wings of a pigeon, but the brown, bumpy head of a toad.On a beautiful 2-page spread are three grizzly bears wearing kilts and tams dancing to the music of a fourth bear who plays the bagpipes.The text reads, "Grandma says our four bears came from Scotland."Meanwhile, Daddy wants a pool table and there are three feet in a yard.

As a teacher, I love to use this book to illustrate how funny and confusing English can be, even for a native speaker!When reading the book I tell them about the time when I was in elementary school and listening to the news reports of "gorilla warfare."Usually I ask students to compose and illustrate their own literal interpretation of common phrases ("hit any key to continue" is a perennial favorite).

Readers who enjoy this book may wish to check out some of the other, similar play on words books by Mr. Gwynne, such as "A Chocolate Moose for Dinner" or "The King Who Rained."Another excellent author readers may enjoy is Jon Agee and his books like "Who Ordered the Jumbo Shrimp? And Other Oxymorons."Beautifully illustrated and very funny, this book is highly recommended. ... Read more

Product Description
A gorilla war? Car pools? Playing the piano by ear? It's no wonder a little girl is confused by some of the strange things she overhears her mommy and daddy saying. With his hilarious wordplay and zany illustrations, Fred Gwynne keeps children of all ages in stitches!

... Read more

Customer Reviews (17)

This book was a disappointment!
I read all the great reviews on this book and bought it for our library - bad idea! I do not recommend this book at all. It is disjointed, jumping all over the place, and is plain boring. I don't see the humor. I don't see how it's a story. It's very uninteresting. My kids were bored. I was bored. We have a library with over 200 books. I've never given a book a negative review until I read this one. Sorry, I just don't get it!

We love chocolate moose for dinner!
Along with the King that Rained, our youngest loves these books. Maybe its because the artwork by Fred Gwynne ( Frankenstein in the Munsters) is superb. She is too young to get many of the puns. Thats ok, once I explained it to her she got it. Now every time we read it she recites why the pun is funny. It has helped her come up with her own puns. This was not an expected outcome of purchasing this book, but we love it!

Thanks Fred for leaving us with more than a character on TV.

Overall a fun book to read at bedtime.

Thank you for reading my review.

Love this book for teaching figurative language!
Such a fun book and I love using it in my third grade classroom to teach figurative language and homonyms. Some of the ideas are a little "old-fashioned" or above the level of my third graders so I need to explain some more than others, but I still use it every year. The kids think it's funny!

Learning through laughter
Fred Gwynne is the author and illustrator of this wonderful book. This book shows us with laughter why English can be so difficult to learn. He captures the attention of the reader with wonderfully engaging illustrations that show the literal meaning of some of the figurative language in the book and in our everyday conversations. This is a wonderful way to show children how words can have more than one meaning. Gwynne takes us to a dinner where Chocolate Moose/ Mousse is served, shares the multiple meaning of making a toast and many other laughable moments of the English language. This book is great fun.

Good
Loved the book.It arrived in a timely manner and was in the condition said. ... Read more

Product Description
When a little girl enters her beloved dog in the local dog show, she's sure he'll be the winner. But the unpedigreed pooch is competing against some very people-like dogs that are owned by very dog-like people! Luckily, a surprise ending saves the day. Full color. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Great Book.
I vaguely remember having read this story when I was a child. Thanks to Amazon I have been able to rediscover this delightful little book by Fred Gwynne, the guy who played Herman Munster on the television show "The Munsters". I am amazed at Gwynne's skill as both a storyteller and artist; he created the illustrations, too and they are full of warmth and care. In this book a young girl decides to enter her unpedigreed mutt in a local dog show. She loves her dog very much and thinks he has a chance of winning. Then she begins meeting some other competitors whose pooches look an awful lot like their owners. What's a girl to do, but go ahead and enter the competition. It's easy to see why.

Wonderful!
I have an original copy of this book and remember it as a child when my grandmother read it to me. It is humorous as well as predictable. Perfect for the young child! The original charcoal-like illustrations are detailed and lend to the textures found in the dogs at the show. The surprise endingmakes the kids smile and is great for "logical reasoning"questions. I love this book and thank my grandma for giving it to me!Irecommend it to teachers and parents alike!

Wonderful book for kids and adults alike
As the webmaster of a site about puppy mills I constantly preach the importance of early education for our children about dogs. This book does that! We all love our dogs and Fred Gwynne (Herman Munster as we all knewand loved him) did an incredible job of showing us why. ... Read more

Product Description
Depicts a little girl's visual images of her parents' talking about such things as bells that peel, banking a fire, and a running nose. ... Read more

Product Description
The parents of a lonely monster admonish him to put a little boy back where he found him--maybe more will grow. ... Read more

Product Description
This hilarious send-up of the old tale of the princess and the frog finds Fred Gwynne, the irrepressible author and illustrator of eight picture books, as playful and inventive as he is in his classic books of homonyms. Full color throughout. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Frog Prince with a Quirk
As should be expected from Fred Gwynne, Pondlarker is the frog prince story with added, off-beat humor. In spite of advice from his parents, the eponymous hero is determined to find a princess to kiss so that he can become a prince. In time, Pondlarker succeeds--and makes a decision that will change his life.

Smooth, humorous storytelling is accompanied by Gwynne's own delightful illustrations. The balance between being different and staying fun is excellently maintained.

For anyone who enjoys frog prince stories, Pondlarker is a prince not to be missed.

A very cute story with a twist!
Yes, this book really is by Herman Munster! Fred Gwynne wrote some other books as well, but I didn't like any of them half as much as this. A young frog heard a story about a princess and a frog - maybe you've heard it, too...He believed it was true and went on an adventure to find a princess to kiss him - what happens when he finds her is what makes the story so great. The illustrations (also by Gwynne) are nicely done, and really add to the story. ... Read more

Product Description
Chapters: Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dean Acheson, Fred Gwynne, Mcgeorge Bundy, C. Douglas Dillon, Sam Waterston, Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., Quentin Roosevelt, W. Averell Harriman, Adrian S. Fisher, Kermit Roosevelt, Groton School, Richard M. Bissell, Jr., Joseph Grew, Harry Mathews, Bobby Scott, Jim Cooper, Endicott Peabody, John Hay Whitney, Robert R. Mccormick, Frederick Trubee Davison, George Biddle, Bradford Washburn, Louis Auchincloss, Hiram Bingham Iv, Gordon Gund, Bronson M. Cutting, Curtis Sittenfeld, Harry Payne Whitney, Francis Biddle, Daniyal Mueenuddin, Erastus Corning 2nd, Eugene V. Rostow, Joseph Alsop, Richard Whitney, Ayi Kwei Armah, Jonathan Brewster Bingham, Sherwood Washburn, Joseph M. Mccormick, Hunter Lewis, Archibald Bulloch Roosevelt, Jr., Walter Russell Mead, E. Roland Harriman, James C. Auchincloss, William Bundy, Laurence Curtis, John Train, Joseph Willard Roosevelt, Francis Keppel, Fuller Potter, Tracy Barnes, Stanley Rogers Resor, Newbold Morris, Hamilton Coolidge, Ellery Sedgwick, A.b.c. Whipple, J. Watson Webb, Jr., Richard Hely-Hutchinson, 8th Earl of Donoughmore, Anson Montgomery, John J. Hollister, Jr.. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 353. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Franklin D. Roosevelt -A young Roosevelt in 1899 sailing with Helen R. Roosevelt and his father James Roosevelt.Roosevelt is an Anglicized form of the Dutch surname 'Van Rosevelt,' or 'Van Rosenvelt', meaning 'from field of roses.' Although some use an Anglicized spelling pronunciation of , that is, with the vowels of rue and felt, Franklin used , with the vowel of the English rose. One of the wealthiest and oldest families in New York State, the Roosevelts distinguished themselves in areas other than politics. Franklin's first cousin, Ellen Roosevelt, was the 1890 U.S. Open Champions...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=10979 ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document, covering the life and work of Fred(erick) (Hubbard) Gwynne, is an entry from Contemporary Authors, a reference volume published by Thompson Gale. The length of the entry is 1191 words. The page length listed above is based on a typical 300-word page. Although the exact content of each entry from this volume can vary, typical entries include the following information:

• Place and date of birth and death (if deceased)
• Family members
• Education
• Professional associations and honors
• Employment
• Writings, including books and periodicals
• A description of the author's work
• References to further readings about the author

Product Description
Chapters: William Randolph Hearst, Ernest Thayer, John Updike, Fred Gwynne, John Reed, Earl Derr Biggers, John P. Marquand, Conan O'brien, Robert Benchley, Cass Sunstein, Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, Al Jean, Richard Appel, Alex Shoumatoff, George Santayana, George Plimpton, George Meyer, Elliot Richardson, Andrew Weil, Owen Wister, Peaches, George W. S. Trow, Mike Reiss, B. J. Novak, F. Van Wyck Mason, Christopher Cerf, Harold Weston, Jim Downey, David X. Cohen, Philip Dunne, Andy Borowitz, Robert E. Sherwood, William R. Huntington, William Gaddis, James Murdoch, David Owen, Patric Verrone, David Samuels, Winthrop Ames, Francis Biddle, Matt Stoller, Douglas Kenney, Ian Frazier, Oliver La Farge, Bill Oakley, Lawrence O'donnell, David Mandel, Harry Behn, Richard Connell, Robert Grant, Roger Sherman Hoar, Carter Burwell, Eric Kaplan, Walter Isaacson, Michael K. Frith, Greg Daniels, Michael Schur, Billy Kimball, William Lindsay White, Peter Ivers, James C. Collins, Patricia Marx, Frederick Lewis Allen, Paul Redford, Kurt Andersen, Nathaniel Benchley, Osborn Elliott, Tom Gammill and Max Pross, Nicholas Stoller, Ernest J. Wilson Iii, Sterling E. Lanier, Fuller Albright, George Eman Vaillant, Curtis Guild, Jr., John Train, William W. Howells, Robyn Dawes, Tom Werner, Richard Gregg, Edward Streeter, Rebecca Rand Kirshner, Edmund M. Wheelwright, Ken Keeler, David Javerbaum, Richard Sears, Kristin Gore, Jon Vitti, Henry N. Cobb, Barrett Wendell, Jeffrey Steingarten, Lawrence Guterman, Charles Hopkinson, Dan Greaney, Maureen Freely, Steve O'donnell, Laurence O'keefe, Edward L. Widmer, Herbert Haseltine, Herbert Eustis Winlock, Steve Tompkins, Levin H. Campbell, Andy Robin, Simon Rich, Thomas Parker Sanborn, John Berendt, Kevin Curran, Edward Knoblock, Robert Hoffman, Frederic Taber Cooper, George Howe, Edward Conlon, Robert Douglas Coe, Etan Cohen, Steve Hely, Emil Guillermo, George Spyrou, Samuel Winslow, Marty Kaplan, Michel Choquette,...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=15824 ... Read more

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Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: Spiro Agnew, Rachel Carson, Philip Berrigan, Frantz Fanon, Eva Cassidy, Jack Kemp, Fred Gwynne, Craig L. Thomas, Robert H. Goddard, Tom Lantos, Rosa Ponselle, Frank Church, John G. Schmitz, Loret Miller Ruppe, Charlie Byrd, Victor A. Mckusick, Robert Kearns, William Safire, Jeff Macnelly, Joe Glazer, Michael Deaver, Aloysius C. Galvin, Doris Dungey, Bob Matsui, Ronald A. Parise, Krešimir Ćosić, Silvio O. Conte, Derek Denny-Brown, Louis R. Harlan, Donal Mclaughlin, Don Dohler, Babe Adams, J. Robert Hooper, J. William Kime, Brian Daley, Bill Emerson, Leslie Glass, Andrew Frank Schoeppel, Victoria Gray Adams, Cassie Mackin, Cal Ripken, Sr., John Glenn Beall, Jr., Paul Bloom, Jack Nelson, John Wilke, Ilona Massey, Curt Motton, R. Edward Lopez, Donald Hiss, Cameron Snyder, Stu Kerr, Bud Delp, George M. O'brien, William Drohan, James A. Clark, Jr., George "Honey Boy" Evans, Schuster Vance, Marian Radke-Yarrow. Source: Wikipedia. Free updates online. Not illustrated. Excerpt: Jack French Kemp (July 13, 1935 May 2, 2009) was an American politician and a collegiate and professional football player. A Republican, he served as Housing Secretary in the administration of President George H. W. Bush from 198993, having previously served nine terms as a Congressman for Western New York from 1971-89. He was the Republican Party's nominee for Vice President in the 1996 election, where he was the running-mate of presidential nominee Bob Dole. Kemp had previously contended for the presidential nomination in the 1988 Republican primaries. Before entering politics, Kemp was a professional quarterback for 13 years. He played briefly in the National Football League (NFL) and the Canadian Football League (CFL), but became a star in the American Football League (AFL). He served as captain of both the San ...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=16200 ... Read more

Product Description
THE KING WHO RAINED by Fred Gwynne (1970 Softcover 38 pages. Simon and Schuster for Young Readers, HOMONYMS) ... Read more

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A delightful book about synonyms for young children. ... Read more

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Each letter of the alphabet introduces an aspect of pollution. ... Read more