Book Review: The Lonely Tadpole

Inspired by his own fishing experience, Harold Brouillette, a retired District Judge, brings us The Lonely Tadpole, a nature story about the loneliness and fright of a small tadpole whose world suddenly changed. It is told in the voice of the tadpole. The story begins when he is caught in a dip net for fishing bait in the farm pond where he had been happy with his many brother and sister tadpoles. Next came a bumpy and scary trip in a bait bucket to the "big lake" where Jake and his daddy had gone to fish. When the fishing began, he managed to escape hands trying to catch him to put him on a hook. After hours of dodging hands in the bait bucket, the fishing trip ended and there were a few tadpoles and minnows left in the bait bucket. Would they be brought back to the pond? No! They were suddenly dumped into the lake as leftover bait.

What a shock and what a surprise! That was the beginning of a scary adventure of life in a big, deep lake with big fish, snakes, alligators and many other large creatures. He couldn't find any of his brothers or sisters, and he was very scared and lonely.

After the first shock of his new environment, he decided to have courage and to deal with his daily struggles. After a while, he began to realize that he was changing and growing. First, he grew front legs -- then back legs -- then he lost his tail -- and finally he became a frog. What an adventure! And then he learned that he could crawl onto the shore of the lake and that he could live both on land and in the lake. He found out from the other frogs that he was an amphibian.

Even while always afraid of being eaten by larger creatures in the lake, he managed to make many new friends. He was not quite so lonely anymore, but he worried about his brothers and sisters. He often thought about how happy he had been in Jake's pond and he wondered if Jake still visited the pond or whether he had grown up and moved away to the city.

This exciting little story entertains while teaching children a little about nature -- specifically, about amphibians and the life cycle of the frog. Also, it teaches about the problems and fears which life presents to all creatures, great and small, and about the courage to face these problems. The reflection about the tadpole's prior happy life in the pond and about Jake growing up mixes a little nostalgia into an interesting and entertaining tale which will be treasured by parents and children alike. The color illustrations are beautifully done and add a great dimension to the story. The can be ordered at Amazon.com, BN.com, and almost everywhere books are sold.