Determined to see the Great World beyond the familiar vistas of the Smiling Pool, Laughing Brook, Green Meadows, and Green Forest, Grandfather Frog leaps forth to tumble haplessly into the pitfalls of greed, boastfulness, and carelessness. In this time-honored classic, Thornton W. Burgess mixes exciting adventure and good-natured humor with gentle homily to spin a wholesome tale of animal characters that children have found irresistible for generations Woven into Grandfather Frog's adventures are the daring pranks of Jerry Muskrat, Little Joe Otter, and Billy Mink, the hunting exploits of Longlegs the Blue Heron and Whitetail the Marsh Hawk, and the brave deeds of Danny Meadow Mouse and Striped Chipmunk. Their interwoven stories, newly reset here in large, easy-to-read type, will delight children as they discover, one by one, the many good reasons why Grandfather Frog came to wish he had never, never thought of leaving the Smiling Pool to see the Great World. (Goodreads)
Thornton Waldo Burgess (January 17, 1874 – June 5, 1965) was an American conservationist and author of children's stories. Burgess loved the beauty of nature and its living creatures so much that he wrote about them for 50 years in books and his newspaper column, Bedtime Stories. He was sometimes known as the Bedtime Story-Man. By the time he retired, he had written more than 170 books and 15,000 stories for the daily newspaper column.