Cassy Polimeni writes books for children and young adults. She has worked as a bookseller, travel writer, magazine editor, TV book reviewer and airport chauffeur. Today we’re chatting to Cassy about Ella and the Amazing Frog Orchestra – the first in a fun four-book junior fiction series, illustrated by Hykie Breeze.
The publisher provided Alphabet Soup with a reader copy of Ella and the Amazing Frog Orchestra.
From the publisher:
Eight-year-old Ella hates her new house. She wants to be back in her old house with her best friend Viv next door … until one day Ella discovers a secret pond in her neighbours’ backyard with an orchestra of frogs! At her new school Ella meets Mai and learns about their class frog bog project. But when Ella finds out that the neighbours’ secret pond is under threat Ella and Mai must come up with a plan to save the frogs – before it’s too late!
Did you ever have to move house when you were growing up?
I lived in the same house my whole childhood, but some of my closest friends at school over the years were ‘the new kid’. I think any new experience – starting school, a new after-school activity or joining a new social group – can feel a bit like moving house because you’re thrown into a new world with new faces and new rules and you might miss the comfort of familiar things. That got me thinking about what might make it easier for Ella and I decided it would be nature — and frogs! – and that connecting with this part of her new environment would help her feel more at home. I did love reading up my favourite tree when I was a kid, just like Ella does in the book. Seeing that childhood memory brought to life with Hykie Breeze’s sweet illustration was a highlight!
What’s your favourite frog?
That’s too hard – with over 7500 species to choose from I need at least a Top 10! I have been fascinated with glass frogs lately — they’re see-through, so you can see their internal organs. Very cool and slightly gross. I’m also fascinated by a tree frog that was discovered in Western Australia recently who was bright blue because of a genetic quirk (tree frogs are usually green).
There are lots of different kinds of frog calls (a frog orchestra!) in the book. Are they based on frogs you can hear where you live or did you research frog calls before you started the writing?
Both! When I had the idea for a frog orchestra I listened to lots of frog recordings (The Frog ID app is great for this) and tried to work out how to put the sounds into words (onomatopoeia) as well as which calls reminded me of which instruments in an orchestra. I didn’t include frog species names because I wanted people from all around Australia (and hopefully the world) to imagine these frogs might live near them.
Is there something you wish everyone knew about frogs?
One of my favourite frog facts is that frogs are an ‘indicator species’ (like bees and coral), which means they can tell us how healthy the environment is. Because of their extremely sensitive skin, frogs are the first to react and respond to changes in their environment, which makes them a bit like an alarm if something is wrong. They are canaries in the coal mine of climate change. Their sensitive skin also means it’s very important not to touch them if you can help it. Anything on your skin – even soap or sunscreen – could be harmful to them. It’s best to admire them from a distance, but if you ever need to pick up a frog for any reason you should use rinsed/dampened rubber gloves.
Can you tell us a bit about what you’re working on next?
The next book in the series, Ella and the Sleepover Safari, will be out early 2025 so I’m excited to be able to start sharing that very soon. It’s about what happens when Ella’s old friend Viv and new friend Mai meet for the first time at her birthday party – a sleepover at the zoo! The girls don’t get along at first but when an animal escapes they need to figure out if they can work together. I’m also working on Books 3 and 4 in the Ella and the Frogs series as well as a narrative non-fiction picture book all about science and wonder with CSIRO Publishing.
Ella and the Amazing Frog Orchestra is out now! Ask for it at your favourite bookshop or local library.
AWESOME EXTRAS
Take a sneak peek inside the book (look for the thumbnails next to the cover)
Ask your grown-up if you can take part in the seventh annual FrogID Week (November 8th to 17th, 2024), which is the Australian Museum’s national citizen science project.
Visit Cassy Polimeni’s website to learn more about her and her books
Cristy Burne writes fiction and nonfiction and her books are bursting with adventure, friendship, family, nature, science and technology. Cristy has worked as a science communicator for nearly 20 years across six countries. She has been a science circus performer, garbage analyst, museum writer, and atom-smashing reporter at CERN, but her all-time favourite job is working with kids to embrace the intersection between science, technology and creativity.
Yes, and I loved it! In 2019 my family travelled across Australia to see platypus in the wild, just like in the book. In fact, that’s the whole reason Beneath The Trees exists. So the descriptions in the book of the forest, the rain, the river and the platypus are all real-life descriptions.
Download Teachers’ Notes
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