I bet you never knew a dog could had a froggy smile.

 I bet you never knew that a story about a dog and a frog could touch your heart, but Mo Willem’s City Dog, Country Frog is a compelling story about moving on, diversity and most importantly friendship, that does just that. The city dog moves to the country, and on the first day there “he ran as far and as fast as he could.” Although he could be happy to be out of the city so he can roam around freely without a leash, the author leaves this part slightly ambiguous. There is no mention of his life before this story began, and city dog could have left behind friends that he had known his whole life. Students reading this novel could perhaps relate to having to move away from the city to the country or from the country to the city, leaving behind all their friends for a new life. Whether or not city dog was feeling the strain of moving, this did not last long as he met country frog that very same day.

Country frog and city dog instantly became friends, despite the fact that country frog was already waiting for someone else. Mo Willem takes the book by seasons, and through the seasons country frog teaches city dog country frog games such as “jumping and splashing and croaking.” When it was city dog’s turn to teach games to country frog, they naturally played games such as “sniffing and fetching and barking.” Of all the games that city dog and country frog play, I think my favorite are the “remember-ing games.”

There is an underlying message about diversity in the text that is fairly subtle. He introduces characters that are completely different in every way. He does not present the city dog as a haughty New Yorker with an accent and an attitude, and the country frog is not a hillbilly with a piece of straw sticking out of his mouth. Instead, he presents these animals as similar creatures. I feel that this is important because it shows that no matter where we are from, we can find common ground and learn from one another. I love that Willems refuses to use any stereotypes in this book and instead takes two completely different worlds and gives them a common ground.

The watercolors in this text by Jon Muth are funny and sad, bright and dark—all at the appropriate moments. According to Mo Willems, the illustrations almost did not happen. In a Booklist feature by Ilene Cooper, Willems revealed that, although he tried to draw the illustrations, none of the pictures he drew could capture the essence of the book like he wanted. One day, he was dreaming he could draw like Jon Muth, and decided he would instead just ask Jon Muth to draw the illustrations. Jon Muth considered the job for a long time, and it was not until a frog sat on his front porch one night and refused to move that he knew he had to draw the illustrations.

When Willems first dreamed of this book, it was because he had bought a cottage in Connecticut; everything was completely different from his city life. Willems states that he was “surprised by how different it was, how much the texture and the color of the land changed, even from weekend to weekend.” In the watercolors, Muth is able to capture the differences that inspired Willem as he switched the landscape between each season. In addition to embodying Willems’ landscape, Willems claims that Muth also made the dog look exactly like his own city dog. My favorite picture in this book, however, has to be of the dog smiling like a frog. Even in your sadness, you have to smile too.

This book is appropriate for all lower elementary school children. This would be a wonderful read aloud book, and the pictures would certainly garner a laugh or an “oh no” from the students. As an independent read, this book could also be useful. The text is sparse and succinct, and the student will come to expect the text on one side and the pictures on the other as they repeat on almost every page. I wonder about the usefulness of this story to read at bedtime, however: I know that I, for one, would lay awake afterwards pondering the characters, the story, and the pictures Muth so wonderfully drew in City Dog, Country Frog.

Mo Willems keeps a blog that can be found here.

Mo Willems readily admits that this book is a departure from his normal writing. Here is a list of some of his children’s books:

• Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale

• Knuffle Bunny Too: A Case of Mistaken Identity

• The Pigeon Finds a Hotdog!

• Knuffle Bunny Free: An Unexpected Diversion (On sale October 1, 2010)

• Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!

• There is a Bird on You Head!