Ribbiting Tales, Edited by Nancy Springer
My 7-year-old daughter picked out this book – with good reason. She knows I love frogs. It may be a guilt-complex. I did some not-so-nice things to frogs in my childhood. If you’ve seen Beavis and Butthead play frog-baseball, then you more or less know what I’m talking about. Before you cast stones, however, I want to assure you that I am doing my best to ensure that future generations love and respect frogs (as I now do).
Despite my past transgressions, I like to think that my love of frogs is more positive than guilt-driven. Some of the best fictional characters I have ever encountered were frogs. I am an avid fan of the Muppets (old-school, not so much the post-Henson stuff), and, of course, Kermit is my favorite character. A while back my daughter found an antique Kermit vase in the Goodwill. It had a broken arm, but was worth the $1.25 we spent for it. A little super-glue made it look presentable. It now sits proudly on my bedroom bookshelf. And sitting next to Kermit is Mr. Toad. Toad, from The Wind in the Willows, is perhaps my favorite character in all the fiction that I have read. I have written of him elsewhere (HERE), so I won’t continue this digression.
So, as I was saying, my daughter found Ribbiting Tales in the used section at Books-A-Million and decided, based on my love of frogs, that we needed to read it. The book is somewhat of a hodgepodge. It is a collection of several different stories, all by different authors, with the common denominator being that each story has something to do with frogs. Some are good, some not so much. None of them are great, but it was worth the 2 bucks I spent on it.
The most entertaining story, for me, concerned a frog who jumped over the moon. Another near the top of the list was about a young boy who discovers that he is a descendent of frogs (not in the evolutionary sort of way, but in the frog-prince sort of way) and is called upon by his frog-relatives to wage war against a factory that is polluting the swamp and causing harm to the frog population.The story ends without resolution – always a no-no in my book.
A good antagonist is always convinced, in some twisted way, that he is right.
The most thought-provoking of the stories is Polliwog, by Stephen Menick, which tells the story of the plagues of Egypt from the viewpoint of Pharaoh. It is an interesting take on the story. I think it is generally interesting to look at a story from the viewpoint of the antagonist. A good antagonist is always convinced, in some twisted way, that he is right. Menick does a fascinating job of showing how Pharaoh could have justified his actions. From the viewpoint of the story, Pharaoh is convinced that Moses is a magician, much like Pharaoh’s own magicians, who is using ‘a god’ in order to accomplish his quest for power. The story revolves to a good degree around Pharaoh’s hatred of magicians, which is a fascinating angle. Magic never served him well.
I find it interesting that it is clear that the angle of ‘magic’ is not at the forefront in the biblical narrative. The issue at hand is idolatry. Through the hand, and staff, of Moses, God is waging war on the beloved (and feared) false gods of Egypt. Each plague, including the plague of frogs, is a direct assault against one of Egypt’s deities. The frog god Heqet is mentioned in Polliwog, but, as the narrative goes, Pharaoh is more concerned with the evil of magic than realizing that there is a message in the ‘magic’ – the message that his gods were no gods at all.
The thing to remember, as I said, is that a good antagonist or villain must always believe that he is in the right. And rather than thinking that we are always on the side of the good guy, we should consider how we might line up with the villain of the story. We are always prone to justify ourselves, even when we are in the wrong. How would you feel if one of your fellow Egyptians turned out not to be an Egyptian at all, and then showed up 40 years later brandishing a staff with the power to perform all kinds of wonders, demanding that the Hebrews be released from slavery, touting the name of a God of whom you have never heard, proclaiming the impending death of your son? Would your heart be soft toward him? It’s worth considering? Perhaps we might attempt to justify ourselves in our opposition. That is all.
Self-Justification is the way of the world.
Since they did not know the righteousness of God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness (Romans 10:3).
