By Trevor Pryce with Joel Naftali, illustrated by Sanford Greene (Amulet)
ISBNB: 978-1-4197-01726
We haven’t covered a straight kid’s prose novel (with the mandatory secret ingredient of loads of cool pictures) for a while now, so it’s good to break that particular duck (sorry, British Sporting metaphor – best look it up under cricket, as I’m being annoyingly clever here…) with a fascinating new series debut from NFL football-star turned author Trevor Pryce, his authorial collaborator Joel Naftali and illustrator Sanford Greene, all dedicated to addressing and rectifying a long-standing literary disparity.
These days, it’s hard enough to get any kid into reading but of late stories targeting – and of interest to – young boys have been pretty much non-existent. Back in the dark ages when we read by candlelight, there was a wealth of essentially Boy’s Only fiction, ranging from fantasies like Heinlein’s Tunnel in the Sky or Clive King’s Stig of the Dump to uncounted war and detective stories of Biggles, Sexton Blake and their square-jawed ilk, classroom classics such as Tom Brown’s Schooldays, Billy Bunter or Just William, tales of innumerable sporting heroes and perennial adventure landmarks like Treasure Island, Ivanhoe, Call of the Wild and so forth.
There were also loads and loads of other books and series like Narnia tales or The Hobbit but those were a bit egalitarian: equally enjoyable by most girls too – so they didn’t count…
Whilst laudable on so many levels, the increasingly generalised fiction experience over the decades left a lot of lads with no introductory boyish literary equivalent to modern men’s fiction: the Sven Hassels, Zane Greys, Alistair Macleans and Mickey Spillanes who service those particularly manly mainstays of fighting, chasing, outwitting and overpowering your properly evil enemies.
I mean these days even Daleks and Klingons are merely misunderstood and have their own valid points of view…
Seeking to tackle the problem of a whole sub-set of youngsters who just give up on reading, the creators involved here pulled off a masterful trick. This is a “boys book†girls, parents and all other softies are going to want to see too…
In the Outback of Australia Darel is a young frog who dreams of being a mighty warrior just like the vanished Kulipari Poison Frogs of legend.
When the horrendous spell-casting Spider Queen Jarrah and massed scorpion armies tried to invade and consume the lush Amphibilands long ago, those valiant heroes led the frog and turtle resistance, ultimately giving their all to save everyone from annihilation. Now everybody lives in idyllic peace, safely hidden from further assault by supreme Sergu, the Turtle King who dream-cast a mystic Veil around the oasis, masking it from all predators – especially the ever-growing, always hungry, malevolently rapacious scorpion horde.
Darel’s dream is no idle childish fantasy: although his mother was an ordinary wood frog (as is he), his father was Kulipari and heroically gave his life to save the wetland paradise from ultimate destruction during The Hidingwar.
These day’s though, nobody really cares about the old stories: safe and complacent behind the Veil, the various frog tribes carry on their dull, happy lives and don’t care to remember the bad old days…
Even Darel’s best friends Gurnagan and Coorah just play along as the frustrated would-be champion constantly practises fighting, sneaking and strategising, preparing for a day which might never come.
Just in case…
Out in the harsh desert badlands however, supreme scorpion Lord Marmoo plans to destroy the Veil forever and feast on the frogs he knows reside beyond it. To facilitate his scheme he has entered into a risky alliance with monstrous Jarrah and even recruited divisions of lizards and “sandpaper frogs†– debased mercenaries who would do anything, even betraying their own kind for profit…
One day, whilst hunting herbs for apprentice healer Coorah at the very edge of the all-concealing barrier, Darel and Gurnagan encounter a scorpion reconnaissance party ensorcelled by the Spider Queen to breach the hem of the Veil and lay the foundations of the mystic shield’s destruction. Further out, the terrified froglets can see an impossibly huge army just waiting in the shimmering sands for the fall of the wall…
Sensing his moment has come, Darel sends faithful “Gee†back to warn the village whilst he spies on the invaders but Gurnagan is quickly captured and dragged off before he can carry out his task.
With all hope resting in his pads, Darel boldly infiltrates the Scorpion Lord’s camp to save his friend, and begins an astonishing heroic odyssey that will bring his people and homelands to the brink of extinction and take him to the mythic allies needed to fulfil his inescapable destiny…
Superbly illustrated by Sanford Greene who provides maps, character studies and more than fifty fascinating fun and scary full-colour illustrations, An Army of Frogs is an enthralling and captivatingly rousing read which rattles along and will hopefully lead to a host of stirring sequels.
Text © 2013 Trevor Pryce. Illustrations © 2013 Sanford Greene. All rights reserved.