The idea of eating strange and repulsive food often strikes children as very funny, and is the basis of humour in this rollicking picture book. It’s the first children’s book for both author Jennifer Rae, from Toronto, and illustrator Rose Cowles, from Victoria, and the two are well paired in their feel for nonsense and the comic energy of their work.

While other Canadian children’s poets, such as Robert Heidbreder in Don’t Eat Spiders, Sean O’Huigin, and Dennis Lee, have also had fun with rhymes about eating peculiar food, Rae has made hers into a verse story about the plump, lazy but ingenious frog Gilbert, who must persuade two gourmet chefs not to eat him. He manages to convince them that frogs’ legs are “très passé these days,” and to try instead his own favourite delicacies such as Hornet Jalapeño and Earthworm Enchiladas. Of course Gilbert succeeds in diverting their appetites to bugs, and the three of them fall asleep replete after a large dinner of slugs (although one might wish, for Gilbert’s sake, that he had put some distance between himself and the greedy chefs, since they could change their minds in the morning).

Rae’s verses will best be enjoyed by readers with enough sophistication to recognize some of the culinary terms and to relish such rhymes as “he closed his eyes and visualized.” Cowles’ illustrations are also sophisticated in their zany distortions of size and perspective, quirky details, and visual allusions that recall the Monty Python animations or Lane Smith’s work in The Stinky Cheese Man. The printed text moves actively around on the pages rather than staying put, and the print size varies to throw emphasis on particular words and phrases – a further link between words and images that enhances the playful post-modern mood. Gilbert de la Frogponde is a promising beginning for both Rae and Cowles, and readers of this book will look forward to seeing more from them.