FICTION EVALUATION GUIDE (Picture Books, Folklore, Fantasy, Realistic Fiction,

Historical Fiction, Multicultural)

Your Name: Hannelore Rogers Book Title:

FRANKENFROG

Author: Kim Kennedy Illustrator:

Doug Kennedy

Publisher/Year: Hyperion Books for Children/1999 Genre: Modern

Fantasy

EVALUATE THE BOOK USING THE FOLLOWING RATE

ELEMENTS OF WRITING. EFFECTIVENESS
OF EACH
ELEMENT
1. STYLE and LANGUAGE- 1 2 3 4
Explain the effective uses of language word 5
choices, sentence length, dialogue, rhythm, and
rhyme.
Explain any unexpected insights the reader
experiences from the story or interesting
information shared. Give examples from the book

The book is rich in language with quite interesting and fun word
choices/phrases. For example: chomping, nosedive, hyper-sizing, tonic,
emerged, incredible, detector, hideous, ghoulish, Mungers, cellar, buzzing
beast, multiflying, conduct, bone-chilling, electrical, specimen, frightfully,
fetched, amphibian, leap-electrodes, croak-conductors, tongue-
transformers, crackled, splat, devour, slimy, luminous, air-splitting,
tornado tunnel, molecular pool, atomic fusion funnel, electro-plasm drool,
amphibious affair, frolicking boghoppers, fellow-kind, glowing goofball,
megavolt mess, collosal, panic, slumped, pitiful, supersonic wings, zaps,
zings, electric charge, feast, munchies, slobbering snout, monstrous,
stupendous, disintegrated, spectacle, mutant, edible, ingenious, potions,
magnificent notions, and lived zappily ever after.
The sentences are short, but not too short and are filled with fun,
interesting, and inventive words and phrases.
Dialogue is used to give insight into characters and their personalities and
thoughts. For example, Dr. Franken loves to create and is a genious while
Frankenfrog just wants to be at the swamp with his friends.
There seems to be an upbeat rhythm to the text because of all the action
vividly described in the text. For example: Sparks flew! Wires crackled!
The lab hummed with energy!
 2. CHARACTER 1 2 3 4
Who is the main character? Explain this characters 5
personality traits? How can the reader relate to the
character, become involved in story? Who are other
supporting characters? Give examples from the
story.

Dr. Franken and Frankenfrog are the two main characters. Dr.
Franken loves to create interesting things like the bottled laugh and
the closet monster detector. He also loves hyper-sizing inanimate
objects like lollipops. He loves to create so much that he is always
moving from one experiment to another. He accidently makes a
ghoulish creature, the Hyperfly, but then just locks it up and moves
on to another experiment.
Frankenfrog is a simpler character who only wants the life in the
swamp. For example, after he was hypersized, all he said was ME
WANTSWAMP!
The readers can relate to the characters with personal experiences
such as doing scientific experiments. The reader becomes involved
in the story because of the scientific experiments and all the crazy,
wonderful, sometimes hideous things that Dr. Franken creates.

3. PLOT (major events in the story): Explain the plot. 1 2 3 4 5

How does the author make the plot believable for
the reader?

Dr. Franken is busy in his lab creating and experimenting. A fly accidently
nosedives into a potion and the Hyper-fly is born. Dr. Franken and his
helpers called the Mungers, lock the Hyperfly down in the cellar. While
doing is experiments, Dr. Franken starts to notice little flies buzzing
everywhere and needs to get rid of all the flies. He tells his Mungers to go
find a frog and they bring back a frog from Croaking Acres. Dr. Franken
hyper-sizes him into Frankenfrog. However, all Franken wants is to go back
to the swamp. Frankenfrog returns to the swamp, but all his friends are
terrified of him and so he is left alone. He then sees Dr. Franken in the
grasp of the Hyperfly and proceeds to rescue him. Frankenfrog runs out of
energy, but then at the last minute, he saves Dr. Franken who is curious as
to how Frankenfrog saved the day. Dr. Franken realizes how ingenious it
was for Frankenfrog to use the energy from fireflies and all the swamp
critters witnessed Frankenfrogs bravery. He returned to the castle with
Dr. Franken where they lived zappily ever after until Dr. Frankens next
experiment
 4. What is the Major Dramatic Question? Is the (MDQ) introduced early
in the story? Remember the MDQ is answered either YES or NO.

MDQ: Will Frankenfrog defeat Hyperfly?

5. SETTING Explain the place and time of the book. 1 2 3 4

THEME- What is the storys theme or lesson? 5

Setting:
The setting is in a lab inside a castle surrounded by a cemetery and a
swamp called the Croaking Acres. The story does not place the story into a
specific time.

Theme: The theme of the story is strange scientific inventions.

6. ILLUSTRATION Analyze the illustrations in the book 1 2 3 4

as explained in Chapter 4 with the categories 5
below:

STYLE: (realism, surrealism, expressionism, impressionism, nave, cartoon

art)
The style is nave. The illustrations are childlike and lacks proportion.

MEDIA: (paint-oils, watercolor, acrylics; pencil or graphite; chalk; crayon or

charcoal)
The book just states that it was printed in Hong Kong by South China
Printing Company, Ltd.

VISUAL ELEMENTS: (line, shapes, color, texture, composition)

The sharp lines of Dr. Frankens nose and chin give him that mad
scientist appearance while Frankenfrogs round and soft curved lines
give him a look of a simple-minded and harmless character. The texture
on the Hyperflys fur/hair is achieved by uneven lines laying in different
directions.
The colors used are quite vivid, but lean towards the darker hues (black,
grey, browns) with brighter hues (pink, red, yellow, and orange) only
littering the pages here and there.
The composition of the book is unpredictable and only adds to the
wonderful madness of the story. Illustrations occupy full pages, but
small separate illustrations are littered above, between, and under the
text.

Explain how illustration and text combined to tell the story:

The text is rich with wonderful, unique, and inventive word
choices/phrases that capture the attention of the reader and audience.
The illustrations help strengthen the text by showing what a Hyper-fly,
Frankenfrog, and Mungers might look like.

PAGE LAYOUT: (Explain page design borders, use of white/dark space to

frame page of provide background, placement of text, size of text, font
etc.)
The placement of the text varies greatly throughout the book. Sometimes
it is added on to full illustration pages with its placement also varying
from the top, bottom, or center (left or right). Sometimes it is at the
bottom, top, center (left or right) of a page with small illustrations
randomly placed as well.

7. CHILD DEVELOPMENT THEORIES Choose 2 of the theorist below

and evaluate the book according to the development of the theories.

PIAGET-COGNITIVE - INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT-

Name the stage: Concrete Operational______________ Give the age: 7-
11_______________________
Explain cognitive development from this stage: Common practices for this
stage include conducting simple observations, using simple equipment
(magnifying glass) to gather data, increasing the use of their senses, and
creating and being able to give explanations.
Give examples for the book to show how the book fits this cognitive stage:
This book is all about scientific experiments and impresses on the children
of how much fun and incredibly interesting experiments can be. Dr.
Franken was using a tonic, tubes, wires, leap-electrodes, croak
conductors, tongue transformers, etc.
It inspires them and cultivates that natural desire to be curious and to
seek answers. It also expands their imagination.
ERIKSON PSYCHOSOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
Name the stage: Industry vs. Inferiority________ Give the age: School age
__________________
Explain of the social development of this stage: They are learning to
complete tasks over extended periods. They are mastering new skills and
develop a sense of industry when they complete a task successfully, work
in multi-ability groups, persevere, and receive praise.
Give examples from the book that support the social development at this
stage:
Dr. Franken was constantly experimenting on something new. When he
made on mistake on accident, he figured out a way to solve the problem.
The book encourages and inspires children to do science experiments and
see if what they thought about something (hypothesis) is correct or
incorrect (results).

EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMEN
Identify the Age __________________________________
Give examples of the emotional development at this age:
Give examples from the book to illustrate the emotional development of
this age:

8. Overall Rating of the book (5 high - 1 low) 1 2 3 4

5
Comments: Did you personally identify with the book? How, what or why
not?

This book has easily become one of my favorites. It captures the attention
from the start. The text is rich and the illustrations are fun. They remind
me of my elementary years and all the science experiments we did as a
class.