Set in Czechoslovakia in the early 1980s, during the waning years of Communist rule, Martin M. Simecka's startlingly original first novel, The Year of the Frog, shows a young man struggling to understand the circumstances of his life. Simecka, born in Bratislava in 1957, is the son of a prominent Czechoslovak intellectual who was imprisoned for his dissident beliefs. Though not overtly political, Simecka's novel is unabashedly autobiographical. First published in installments in the underground Czechoslovak press, it was reissued in one volume after the lifting of restrictions. Written in engagingly simple, unadorned prose, The Year of the Frog follows the fortunes of Milan, a young intellectual forbidden to attend college because of his father's political activities. Unable to pursue his studies and under surveillance by the authorities, who frequently trail him in their yellow-and-white Zhiguli cars, Milan takes a succession of menial jobs, first as a surgical orderly in a hospital, where he witnesses death on a regular basis, and then as a clerk in a perpetually understocked hardware store, and then again in a hospital, this time as an assistant in a maternity ward. After Milan's father is arrested, his mother, a diabetic, spends her days pining for her husband and listening to the Voice of America over Viennese radio. Once, following a trip to Poland, Milan himself is briefly detained by the police. But the grimness of Milan's day-to-day existence cannot blunt his ever-agile, ever-questioning intellect, nor can it diminish the joy he derives from his two great passions: long-distance running, which he pursues with almost Zen-like dedication through the streets of Bratislava and thesurrounding countryside, and Tania, a university student with whom he falls in love and with whom he discovers that the world, even one as circumscribed as his own Communist-controlled one, is full of possibilities. Milan's story is told with the exuberance and innocence of youth. But the book's deceptively naive style does not mask its earnest seriousness. The Year of the Frog gives American readers a compelling and accurate view of life at a crucial time in Czechoslovakia's history; more important, it offers a vital and absorbing portrait of the coming of age of a young man unafraid to pose important questions about love and freedom, life and death.

Dominic the dragon befriends a boy named Bo as well as the other eleven animals of the Chinese lunar calendar and helps them enter the annual village boat race. Lists the birth years and characteristics of individuals born in the Chinese Year of the Dragon.

The Year of The Frog candidly portrays the struggle a woman in her forties went through trying to do everything perfectly to fit into a society entrenched with religion to seek the Prince of Peace, consumerism to feel prosperity and kissing frogs to find Prince Charming. The author abruptly sold her entire life to runaway alone seeking her soul-tur.

A NEW YORK TIMES TOP BOOK OF 2015 WASHINGTON POST NOTABLE BOOK The author of Red Sorghum and China’s most revered and controversial novelist returns with his first major publication since winning the Nobel Prize In 2012, the Nobel committee confirmed Mo Yan’s position as one of the greatest and most important writers of our time. In his much-anticipated new novel, Mo Yan chronicles the sweeping history of modern China through the lens of the nation’s controversial one-child policy. Frog opens with a playwright nicknamed Tadpole who plans to write about his aunt. In her youth, Gugu—the beautiful daughter of a famous doctor and staunch Communist—is revered for her skill as a midwife. But when her lover defects, Gugu’s own loyalty to the Party is questioned. She decides to prove her allegiance by strictly enforcing the one-child policy, keeping tabs on the number of children in the village, and performing abortions on women as many as eight months pregnant. In sharply personal prose, Mo Yan depicts a world of desperate families, illegal surrogates, forced abortions, and the guilt of those who must enforce the policy. At once illuminating and devastating, it shines a light into the heart of communist China.

“A huge, beautiful compendium of 600 frogs from around the world, from the famed poison-arrow variety on up to the intriguingly named plaintive rain frog.” —Wired With over 7,000 known species, frogs display a stunning array of forms and behaviors. A single gram of the toxin produced by the skin of the Golden Poison Frog can kill 100,000 people. Male Darwin’s Frogs carry their tadpoles in their vocal sacs for sixty days before coughing them out into the world. The Wood Frogs of North America freeze every winter, reanimating in the spring from the glucose and urea that prevent cell collapse. The Book of Frogs commemorates the diversity and magnificence of all of these creatures, and many more. Six hundred of nature’s most fascinating frog species are displayed, with each entry including a distribution map, sketches of the frogs, species identification, natural history, and conservation status. Life-size color photos show the frogs at their actual size—including the colossal seven-pound Goliath Frog. Accessibly written by expert Tim Halliday and containing the most up-to-date information, The Book of Frogs will captivate both veteran researchers and amateur herpetologists. As frogs increasingly make headlines for their troubling worldwide decline, the importance of these fascinating creatures to their ecosystems remains underappreciated. The Book of Frogs brings readers face to face with six hundred astonishingly unique and irreplaceable species that display a diverse array of adaptations to habitats that are under threat of destruction throughout the world. “If you are a serious (and I mean serious) fan of the frog, you are in for a real treat.” —Boing Boing

A frog full of tadpoles? Impossible! Here, for the first time, is the strange but true story of Darwin's frog. After Charles Darwin discovered the frog in 1834, other researchers found that one of his specimens was packed full of tadpoles. Was the frog a cannibal, or perhaps a rare species that gave birth to live young instead of laying eggs? No. He was a male, holding the tadpoles safe in his vocal sac while they morphed into froglets. And the surprises didn't stop there. Author and frog scientist Marty Crump mines her firsthand experiences studying Darwin's frog to tell the fascinating story for young readers. Award-winning illustrators Steve Jenkins and Edel Rodriguez lend their art to a mix of beautiful photographs. Young readers will be enthralled by this story of real science, full of strange surprises.

Oscar is an adorably naive, googly-eyed kitten, filled with curiosity and wonder about his natural surroundings. In this series, he meets friends who introduce him to key science concepts. This time, Oscar learns about tadpoles, seeds, eggs, and what he'll grow into."