Bryn Savage

The Hieronymus Frosch series by Andreas H. Schmachtl is one of my very favorite series for elementary students, especially kids who love STEM (known as MINT in German). My son and I were delighted by the combination of Schmachtl’s trademark whimsical humor and a science focus.

Hieronymus Frosch, is a frog who lives at No. 12 Ivy Lane in the Butterweck family garden. His neighbours are Emmy Wackernagel the shrew and her children, and Björn the wren, who lives in a teapot. Hieronymus is an inventor who works on any problem until he has found a solution, no matter how long it takes. The breakthrough always comes with a brainwave — “a scientific sensation,” as he always exclaims. Hieronymus’s only enemy is the frog Nick, who begrudges him his success and mocks him at every turn — although Schmachtl portrays the rivalry with humor.

As in his series Hörnchen and Bär, Schmachtl plays his main character’s vanity for laughs in a way that is delightful and rare in young children’s literature. The only parallel I can think of is the original Winnie the Pooh series. Hieronymus Frosch can be enjoyed by children age 4+, but the language in the books is somewhat complex, so I would recommend it for families with a strong command of German.

Unfortunately there are only three standard volumes in this amusing series and two graded readers.

1. Darauf hat die Welt gewartet: Hieronymus invents one scientific sensation after another — including a fully automatic pea-counting machine, a semi-hydraulic postcard maker, and a one-person cooling rain machine — yet the local science club refuses to admit him simply because he is a frog and not a human.
2. Das hat die Welt noch nicht gesehen: Hieronymus conjures up ever more outlandish inventions in his workshop, investigates the mysteries of an impenetrable fog, ends up rescuing his rival Nick from grave danger, and then sets off with his Uncle Aquarius to explore the deep sea.
3. Hieronymus Frosch feiert Weihnachten (2013, 88 pages) A festive special in which the inventor frog experiences the Christmas season in his own uniquely tinkering style.

Graded Readers:

1. Eine höchst praktische Erfindung mit viel KAWUMM! The Society for the Advancement of Science holds a competition in which every member must devise something clever for the garden — and Hieronymus naturally produces a highly practical invention with a great deal of KABOOM.
2. Auf der Jagd nach dem Tomaten-Frosch When Nick calls him a dim-witted tomato frog, Hieronymus has had enough — he sets off on an expedition to Madagascar to prove that tomato frogs are anything but dim, and along the way discovers the world’s smallest chameleon.

Activity Book:

Experimente mit Hieronymus Frosch: Faszinierende Experimente für Kinder