Step by step throughout the world of a Little Frog’s Heart

A Little Frog’s Heart – Synopsis of the First For Volumes

Volume I – The Golden Quill, Angel or Executioner?

Since you’ve already read this volume, you are familiar with the story line. Just to briefly remind you: Mother Drop, the Flea and the Silk Worm are brought together by a series of circumstances and their encounter prompts a whole string of stories. Their tales let us know about their identity and nature, about the environments they come from, about the events that made them leave the safety of their homes and set out on a quest.

Volume II – The First Steps towards Maturity

This is another volume that you’ve already gone through and, as you know, the focus is on the Old Rat and its funeral incineration. As a parallel story, we have the Flea recounting its adventures from the time when he accidentally got stuck in a tom-cat’s eye and had to go through a legal battle in order to re-gain his freedom.

In terms of genre, the episode of the Old Rat funeral is a drama, whilst the Flea’s story obviously falls under adventures.

Volume III – The Stellar Waltz of Life 

Philosophical meditation is the phrase that best describes the overall tone of the volume. There is also an element of continuity that links the current volume with the previous one: the Fox Priest is a character who comes to the forefront of the story, and his presence brings about the topic of greed and keeping up false appearances.

The Flea gets into the pockets of the priest looking for candy, like any mischivious child would, but instead he finds himself in a big pile of gold coins. Thus, the Flea enters a parallel world, completely different from his ordinary world, with rules and hidden traps which he comes across and gets to know by accident.

The title stems more or less from the themes like friendship, loyalty, trust, the clash between wants and needs. The dialogue is carried out mainly between the Flea and the Silk Worm. The latter is hopelessly in love with a girl, but he doen’t know how to go about it. The Flea listens to him and, being slightly older and more experienced, he gives the Silk Worm good advice. Thus, topics like trust and patience are extensively debated and the conclusion is self-explanatory: any relationship (whether it’s camaraderie, or romantic love) can’t survive without them.

Topics like disappointment and failure in life are craftily and courageously tackled, and humour is an integral part of the dialogue. Conclusion, again: every kick in the back is a step forward!

The chapter which gives the title of the volume is a lesson on how life should be perceived and handled. This is a subject taught by the best teachers going – Mother Nature’s children: the sun, the wind and the rain. What the Flea reveals to his friend is that life has a purpose and a pace, and if we manage to adjust ourselves to its rhythms, we can live happily and content ever after. Going with the flow, rather than fighting against it seems to be the key to success.

Another important aspect depicted in the volume is the special relationship between grandparents and grandchildren. Whilst still in the priest’s pocket and actively looking for a way out, the Flea goes down the memory lane and remembers stories and anecdotes, as well as life events that have his grandparents as main participants. The grandparents’ teachings are far from moralising; funny, loving and caring would be more like the right descriptors for them. All these memories are poved right once again, as the Flea finally gets home and his grandparents are overjoyed to have him back: they give him a great welcome, clean him and nurse him back to health. Grandma’s practical intelligence and granddad’s patience and wisdom play a great role in educating the grandchildren and preparing them for life.

When the grandparents’ time in this world comes close to an end, we’ve got a very emotive and skilfully written episode where serious topics like old-age and death are described metaphorically, as if seen through a child’s eyes. Death is regarded as a serene and calm departure which provides the right type of closure for all the members of the family. In my personal opinion, this episode could become a little film in itself.

The Joys of the Sun – the last chapter of the book, puts forward a story about the birth of the universe, with a special focus on planet Earth. The Sun falls deeply in love with a galaxy; their love, secret and forbidden, triggers a cascade of romantic adventures in which the two lovers are involved. In the end, they have to resign themselves to being torn apart, since they each must perform their duty to the Universe where they are needed, which is worlds away from each other. The conclusion, however, is a positive one: despite incommensurable distance in time and space, their love is still there, as passionate as ever, and making the world go round. That is, probably another potential bit of material which can be turned into a little film.

Volume IV - The Coming of Age

The Flea and the Silk Worm are still the two main poles of dialogue, with Mother Drop as a passive witness, since she had fallen asleep way back, at the beginning of volume III. The third and the forth volumes are locked in together by a common theme which carries on from the previous to the next: grandparents and their role within the family. Pushed by his curiosity, the Silk Worm asks the Flea a lot of questions about his grandparents, which again, bring about the theme of romantic love. We have the opportunity to be introduced to grandma and granddad as young people.

As a young girl, word of Grandma beauty had travelled far and wide in the land. Thus, she was not short of male attention. Out of all the men, two are considered as potential candidates for marriage: a wealthy young man, well-versed in the high-life, with good taste in women, and a poor young man, honest, hard-working and determined to touch the heart of the girl of his dreams. The rich young man shows up to propose holding a posh and colourful bunch of exotic flowers, while the poor one presents his amour with a bunch of freshly picked snow-drops, the first in the season. The well-to-do comes smartly dressed in a perfectly fitting suit, while his poor rival makes an appearance in his best clothes, yet covered in mud from head to toe. Despite appearances, the girl understands that her poor suitor had gone to great length to get those snow-drops, tearing his best clothes and getting all dirty, while the young dandy employed other people to get done “the dirty work”. The young bride-to-be decides to pick up her future husband considering the quality of the person, and therefore she chooses the less wealthy on the outside, with plenty to give on the inside. It’s a classical romantic story that goes back in time to show how grandma and granddad came to find each other and get married.

Grandma is also the source of another charming story about some dew-drops. On this occasion, we have the old clash between generations and the on-going conflict between young and old. The Flea remembers his grandma recounting the dialogue between an old dew-drop, who stands for duty, honour and self-sacrifice, and its young counterpart, a rebellious and boisterous dew-drop, eager to get to know the world around and to set out on its own adventure.

The Flea is not short of adventure in this book, either. One day he decides to go on a stroll through the fur of his master, the Old Rat and happens to come across an old wound which has never healed properly. Inquisitive as we know him, he wants to take a closer look at things, and therefore he gets under the rat’s skin to see what is really going on. No sooner underground, then the Flea finds himself in a middle of a conflict between the red cells and thewhite cells, separated in two different crowds, each lot blaming the other for the poor state of the old wound. In the end, the Flea succeeds in appeasing both sides by cleaning the wound and putting things back on track for the healing process.

The Flea continues to spin his stories with the Silk Worm enjoying every single one of them. The following part of the book, the coming of age, which also gives the title of the volume, is quite an extensive bit. The flea belongs to a big family with lots of siblings and the sibling rivalry coming with the territory. The older brother often challenges the younger ones to do all sorts of daring and crazy things (some of which are downright dangerous!). As a result, the younger brothers come together in spontaneous unity against the older brother who never stops teasing them. On one of these occasions everything ends up in tears, as one of the littlies gets badly hurt. Faced with the consequences of their acts, both the young brother, and particularly the older brother have to acknowledge reality and assume responsibility.

Remorseful and upset, the older brother decides to leave home and seclude himself in the ear of the Old Rat without telling anything to anyone. Worried about his sudden disappearance and his future well-being, the family makes the decision of sending dad in search for the older son, while the rest of the family are working together to alleviate the suffering of the injured child and to help him get better soon.

Taking shelter in the Rat’s ear, the older brother realises that he can’t hide away from the outside world, but there is no hiding from his inner dragons. He is brought to account for his careless attitude by his conscience until he recognises his guilt in it and makes a pledge to change the person he is. On the other hand, the older brother benefits from the sound advice and the good hosting of the Rat.

In order to pay his dues for the warm welcome and the good counsel, the older brother rolls up his sleeves and starts cleaning and tidying up in the Rat’s ear. As he works away, he becomes the unsuspecting hero of a great adventure which will play a major role in his maturing process. The events of the present hook him up to some events in the past, and he starts remembering the bumpy ride he had when, together with a friend, went honey-hunting in a beehive.

As they dive into the beehive, they realise that the place is built like a fortress, with armies of bee-workers guarding the honey day in and day out. The episode is highly humorous and fine in details. The two fleas are happy to get out with their lives, but much to their surprise they find that the bee queen filled their sacks with lots of honey jars, explaining everything in a note. The episode comes to show that life has many shades of grey between the definite black and white. What we think is bad, can turn out good and the other way around!

The forth volume closes with a little pensive chapter – Philosophy is in Everything – which rounds up the book.     

to be continue