{"product_id":"life-according-to-og-the-frog-isbn-9781524739966","title":"Life According to Og the Frog","description":"\u003cb\u003eThe adventure continues in Room 26 with Humphrey's frog-tastic best friend, Og the Frog!\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     Og the Frog has just moved into Room 26, and the place is hopping. There are lively kids, new routines, and a furry neighbor who seems to squeak all day. Luckily, everyone seems friendly and--BING, BANG, BOING!--some even put juicy crickets in his tank. But just as Og is getting used to this new life, there is talk of sending him back to the pond. Sure, he misses his friends, but now he has a lot more time for his favorite hobby--making up songs and poems--and he loves listening to his new friends and giving them encouraging BOINGS just when they need them. And there's that steady supply of crickets . . .\u003cbr\u003e     Og doesn't want to say goodbye to his new life or his furry neighbor. But will his classmates decide to keep Og as their classroom pet or take him back to his old life, at the pond?★ \"This sparkling offshoot of Birney’s Humphrey the hamster series reveals the Room 26 goings-on from the perspective of amphibian Og, a second classroom pet. . . . Laced with environmental facts, this is a heartening tale of cross-species friendship, change, and belonging.\" \u003ci\u003e—Publishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003cb\u003estarred review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e★ “This first volume in a spinoff series about Humphrey’s pal, Og the frog, offers heart and humor. . . Birney pours the same charm into this new series as she did into the [Humphrey] books. . . An excellent addition to chapter book collections.” \u003ci\u003e—School Library Journal\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003cb\u003estarred review\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Move over, rodent. There's a new class pet in town. . . Though writing with her customarily light touch, Birney gives serious thought to the plight of pets caught in the wild, giving voice to every side and debating the most humane response. Og's miscommunications with Humphrey provide ample comic relief, as do the frog's songs, which he launches into with gusto. While it may not be that easy being green, this book mixes the sweet and the serious in a ribbitting read.” —\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eBetty G. Birney \u003c\/b\u003ehas written episodes for numerous children’s television shows, including \u003ci\u003eThe New Adventures of Madeleine, Doug,\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eBobby’s World,\u003c\/i\u003e as well as after-school specials and a television movie, \u003ci\u003eMary Christmas. \u003c\/i\u003eShe has won many awards for her television work, including an Emmy, three Humanitas Prizes, and a Writers Guild of America award.  In addition to the Humphrey books, she is the author of \u003ci\u003eThe Seven Wonders of Sassafras Springs\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Princess and the Peabodys.\u003c\/i\u003e A native of St. Louis, Missouri, Betty lives in Los Angeles with her husband, an actor.\u003cb\u003eLIFE ACCORDING TO OG THE FROG\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003eCHAPTER 1\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003eMy Leap into Room 26\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eIt's right there in the tall grass ahead of me. Just about the juiciest tidbit I've ever seen. Nice and chubby with spiky legs and wiggly antennae. A real dream of a cricket.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eNow all I have to do is grab it with my great, long tongue\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eand flick it back into my mouth and YUM! The time is right—\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"SQUEAK-SQUEAK-SQUEAK!\"\u003cbr\u003e BOING! There's no cricket in sight. Not even any tall grass. I guess it was just a daydream.\u003cbr\u003e Instead of the swamp, I'm in my tank in Room 26 of Longfellow School, and that furry guy in the cage next door is at it again.\u003cbr\u003e \"SQUEAK-SQUEAK-SQUEAK!\" I haven't been here long, but so far, that's all he says in his high-pitched little squeal.\u003cbr\u003e I've never seen anyone in the swamp like him.\u003cbr\u003e He's hairy with beady little eyes and big whiskers. Kind of like a mouse with a short tail, but chubbier. His fur is an odd shade of yellowish brown—is that natural? And then there’s the constant, high-pitched squeaking. (I think he’s a little bit wacky.)\u003cbr\u003e My skin feels dry, so I plop myself into the large bowl of water in my tank.\u003cbr\u003e SPLASH!\u003cbr\u003e The water here is a lot cleaner than it was back in the swamp where I used to live. The teacher puts in fresh water every day. It’s nice, although a little bit of muck never hurt anybody.\u003cbr\u003e “A little less splashing over there,” the teacher says. I pop my head up above the water and see that she’s smiling at me.\u003cbr\u003e “Who . . . me?” I ask.\u003cbr\u003e Some of the students giggle. They \u003ci\u003elike\u003c\/i\u003e to giggle.\u003cbr\u003e I haven’t been in school for long, but I have figured out that the big human is the teacher and the smaller humans are her students. It’s just like Granny Greenleaf teaching the little tadpoles back in the swamp, but these tads are much bigger.\u003cbr\u003e I have no idea why the furry guy and I are here. We don’t have a single thing in common with the humans or each other.\u003cbr\u003e Don’t get me wrong. While the squeaking sometimes gets under my bright green skin (with snazzy black polka dots), I’m glad to be living in Room 26 and out of Room 27.\u003cbr\u003e I’d rather be back in the swamp, but I was hoppy to go anywhere to get away from George.\u003cbr\u003e In fact, for a while all I could think about was getting away from George.\u003cbr\u003e George is the \u003ci\u003eother\u003c\/i\u003e frog back in Miss Loomis’s class, where I started out at Longfellow School. He was \u003ci\u003enot\u003c\/i\u003e a nice frog. To be fair, until I came along, he was the only frog in Room 27. I guess he liked it that way.\u003cbr\u003e But it wasn’t my idea to move to a classroom. I was content to live in the swamp. It was a paradise for frogs, offering every kind of yummy insect you can imagine!\u003cbr\u003e I ate crickets for breakfast, dragonflies for lunch, beetles and grasshoppers for dinner and mosquitoes as a bedtime snack. There were also lovely snails and other small crunchy creatures. Yum! There was plenty of water to keep my skin wet, and there were damp, grassy places where I could hide.\u003cbr\u003e I had to do that often, because there was danger, too. Beaky birds and slithery snakes. Lurking lizards and some furry foes as well.\u003cbr\u003e But I can swim, and I can leap, and it was always just a hop, skip and a jump to safety! Once I reached a soggy and sticky hideaway, I could daydream to my heart’s content. And I do like to daydream!\u003cbr\u003e Every morning, I looked up at the sky and sang a joyful song.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eLet us sing to life in the swamp, \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eWhere we hop and leap and romp.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eWhat’s that I see over there in the thicket?\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eJoy, oh joy, it’s a lovely cricket!\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eAs I sit in the morning dew, \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eSwamp, oh swamp, I sing to you!\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e I thought that George might like my song, but no, he most definitely did not. There was nothing he liked about me.\u003cbr\u003e You see, George is a bullfrog, and it’s well known that bullfrogs are the bullies of the swamp.\u003cbr\u003e For one thing, they are BIG. They are also loud and bossy. You get a group of bullfrogs together at night, and you won’t believe the racket! They call it singing. I call it an uproar.\u003cbr\u003e The worst was a critter named Louie the Loudmouth. Louie was all mouth and no brain. I think he was related to George.\u003cbr\u003e Louie mouthed off nonstop, until one day when a long- legged crane silenced him forever. There was peace in the swamp at last.\u003cbr\u003e But there was no peace with George in Room 27.\u003cbr\u003e He was a bully who took an instant dislike to me and let me know it.\u003cbr\u003e George said \u003ci\u003eterrible\u003c\/i\u003e things to me, day in and day out. I won’t repeat any of it, because he said insults that tadpoles— big or small—should never have to hear!\u003cbr\u003e It was awful, but thankfully I learned to block it out, so\u003cbr\u003e I heard what the humans heard:\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “RUM-RUM. RUM-RUM. RUM-RUM. RUM-RUM!”\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Sometimes I’d politely answer with the clear, strong call of a green frog.\u003cbr\u003e “BOING!” I’d say. “Oh, really? You think so?”\u003cbr\u003e Ordinary frogs may croak, but green frogs like me have a special twanging sound.\u003cbr\u003e “Who says?” I’d repeat with a boing.\u003cbr\u003e Green frogs are proud of our twangs. When we go boing, every critter in the swamp knows exactly who we are.\u003cbr\u003e But George wasn’t impressed. He got even louder.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “RUM-RUM. RUM-RUM!”\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e And so it went, all day long. All that noise made Miss Loomis as jumpy as a jackrabbit. She could hardly teach because George was so loud.\u003cbr\u003e The problem didn’t stop at night, either. I’m not sure George ever slept, because he kept up a steady stream of RUM-RUMs all night long.\u003cbr\u003e There was never time to do what I like best: Float. Doze. Be. That’s when I just let my mind drift like a cloud. I always get my best ideas this way.\u003cbr\u003e So when Miss Loomis explained to the class that I’d be leaving Room 27 and moving to Room 26, my heart started beating like a hummingbird’s wings.\u003cbr\u003e I didn’t know anything about Room 26, but it had to be better than living next door to George. Anyplace would be better without George.\u003cbr\u003e The teacher in Room 26 is called Mrs. Brisbane, and she seems nice. She’s not a bit jumpy, like Miss Loomis was. She’s as steady as a salamander.\u003cbr\u003e She speaks in a voice that’s soft but not too soft. She has a nice smile and sharp eyes like an eagle that could quiet even George down with a single glance. (Well, maybe.)\u003cbr\u003e In my short stay in Room 27, I learned to piece together some of the sounds humans in the classroom make. But it wasn’t easy with George going RUM-RUM all the time.\u003cbr\u003e A lesson in Room 27 sounded like this: “Class, take out your books and turn to page RUM-RUM!”\u003cbr\u003e Or, “The capital of Spain is RUM-RUM, RUM-RUM!”\u003cbr\u003e It’s a wonder the students learned anything.\u003cbr\u003e I found out more about human speech over the holidays, when Miss Loomis took George and me home for the break. Of course, she couldn’t leave us near each other without George rattling off a thunderstorm of RUMs. So she put him in a room at one end of her house and put my tank in a room at the other end.\u003cbr\u003e I was in the room with the picture box—which I later learned is called a television.\u003cbr\u003e Sometimes Miss Loomis would fall asleep while watching, and the television would be on all night. That’s when I really learned to understand human talk. Words like \u003ci\u003enews\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003epain relief\u003c\/i\u003e. And the quiz shows were very educational.\u003cbr\u003e For instance, did you know that there are places called deserts that get less than ten inches of rainfall a year? I don’t think my frog friends and I will be moving to a desert any- time soon!\u003cbr\u003e And the capital of Spain is actually Madrid.\u003cbr\u003e The most fascinating fact I learned from a game show is that the longest frog leap that has been recorded is—are you ready?—33 feet, 5.5 inches! I’m going to need a lot of practice to beat that record!\u003cbr\u003e Of course, I don’t have that much room to leap in my tank.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e ***\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e When I first came to Room 26—with Mrs. Brisbane’s nice voice and no George to interrupt—I was able to hear what was going on for a change.\u003cbr\u003e Miss Loomis carried my tank into the classroom, and the students were as excited to see me as I am when I zero in on a cricket.\u003cbr\u003e All eyes were on me as she explained about George not getting along with me. Including a pair of beady little eyes\u003cbr\u003e that belonged to the scrawny little fluff ball in the cage next to me.\u003cbr\u003e Someone made a strange noise—“Ribbit.” It didn’t sound like anything I’d heard back in the swamp, but everyone laughed again.\u003cbr\u003e When Mrs. Brisbane said that I’d make a nice friend for Humphrey, I heard a little squeak from the furry guy next door. He must be called Humphrey!\u003cbr\u003e After Miss Loomis left, the students gathered around my tank for a closer look. All except one, a red-haired girl who looked as miserable as a toothless swamp beaver.\u003cbr\u003e The students had a lot of questions, and Mrs. Brisbane had the answers. She explained that I am an amphibian, so I am cold-blooded.\u003cbr\u003e She said that hamsters like Humphrey are warm- blooded. So Humphrey must be a hamster!\u003cbr\u003e I heard some tiny squeaks coming from next door . . . and then I let out a great, big “BOING!”\u003cbr\u003e The students burst into laughter. They all laughed every time I said, “BOING!”\u003cbr\u003e It was like a game. I’d say, “BOING,” and everybody would laugh.\u003cbr\u003e A boing may mean I’m happy or sad or may be an answer to a question, but unfortunately, humans can’t understand me.\u003cbr\u003e When the big tads wanted to know what I eat, Mrs. Brisbane told them, “Miss Loomis said he likes insects,” which is true. Just thinking about a nice, juicy cricket makes my tongue tingle.\u003cbr\u003e But the students all said, “Ewwww!” and made faces. Except for Humphrey, who let out a series of three high- pitched squeaks.\u003cbr\u003e “SQUEAK-SQUEAK-SQUEAK!”\u003cbr\u003e I’m not sure you’d even hear him in the swamp, with all the loud animals there, especially the bullfrogs. Still, his squeaks don’t sound mean like George’s rumblings. He seems harmless but slightly irritating, like a furry fly. And he’s such a fuzzy little thing, he’s no threat to me. He couldn’t even scare a slug.\u003cbr\u003e Mrs. Brisbane assured them that eating crickets is nor- mal for frogs—yes, ma’am! Luckily, Miss Loomis had sent a jar of crickets along with me. Life is better with a jar full of crickets—and no George.\u003cbr\u003e From when I first got here this morning, I thought Room\u003cbr\u003e 26 would be an improvement over Room 27. But as Granny\u003cbr\u003e Greenleaf always said, “Only time will tell.”\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e ***\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Just like in Miss Loomis’s room, when a bell rings in Room\u003cbr\u003e 26, the big tads all leave the classroom, but the furry fellow and I stay.\u003cbr\u003e BING-BANG-BOING! Without George, the quiet is a relief.\u003cbr\u003e I am just about to doze off when I hear that sound again.\u003cbr\u003e It’s something squeaky, but this time it doesn’t sound like the furry guy.\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eScreech-screech-screech!\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I glance over at his cage, and what do you know? My tiny neighbor is running inside a great big wheel.\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eScreech-screech-screech!\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Snakes alive! Who spins in a wheel? Nobody in the swamp does that.\u003cbr\u003e Then he starts squeaking. \u003cbr\u003e “Squeak-squeak-squeak!” \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eScreech-screech-screech!\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e It isn’t nearly as bad as being around George, but sud- denly, I am a little homesick for the buzzing, humming, rus- tling, rattling, croaking, chirping and swishing sounds of the swamp.\u003cbr\u003e I climb into my water bowl to reflect on my day. It’s eas- ier to think when I’m damp.\u003cbr\u003e The screeching and squeaking sounds are a lot softer underwater. But then the bell rings, which even underwater, I can hear.\u003cbr\u003e The students come back, and soon Mrs. Brisbane is talk- ing about my old home. Wow! I never knew how old the trees around the swamp might be! Even older than old Granny Greenleaf!\u003cbr\u003e It’s odd to spend all afternoon indoors. Back in the swamp, I spent my afternoons looking for food. (Sometimes I came up short.) Of course, I don’t have to do that now.\u003cbr\u003e I don’t have anything to do here. It’s an easy life (but maybe a little dull).\u003cbr\u003e After a while, the bell rings one more time.\u003cbr\u003e I pop my head up and watch as the students leave again: the boy with glasses who’s always the first out the door, the loud boy, the shy girl, the giggling one.\u003cbr\u003e Before long, the furry guy and I are all alone in Room 26. I snooze on my rock for a while, but it’s not easy to sleep\u003cbr\u003e with that round thing on the wall ticking so loudly.\u003cbr\u003e The humans look at it to know what time it is. I guess they never thought of just looking up at the sky: the sun, the moon and the stars. You can tell what time it is in the swamp without ticking noises or loud bells.\u003cbr\u003e The room slowly turns dark, and I am hoppy that the furry guy is quiet. Maybe he’s dozing, too.\u003cbr\u003e And then, all at once, my neighbor flings open the door of his cage and scurries over to my tank. Wouldn’t you think somebody would put a lock on that door?\u003cbr\u003e “SQUEAK-SQUEAK-SQUEAK! SQUEAK-SQUEAK- SQUEAK-SQUEAK!” he says in a very excited voice.\u003cbr\u003e I think he’s trying to tell me something. Does he think I understand?\u003cbr\u003e Frogs and furry creatures are \u003ci\u003enever\u003c\/i\u003e friends in the swamp. Still . . . he’s a lot friendlier than George ever was.\u003cbr\u003e I decide to give him a glorious green frog greeting.\u003cbr\u003e I leap toward my neighbor and say, “Hoppy to meet you! BOING-BOING!” in my fabulous froggy way.\u003cbr\u003e And would you believe it? The furry guy looks shocked. He leaps backward, races to his cage and slams the door\u003cbr\u003e behind him.\u003cbr\u003e After a while, there is only the ticking noise and the gentle song of crickets in the room.\u003cbr\u003e So much for friendship!","brand":"Puffin Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46303847645413,"sku":"NP9781524739966","price":8.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781524739966.jpg?v=1767731416","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/life-according-to-og-the-frog-isbn-9781524739966","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}