The Battle of the Frogs and the Mice: A Homeric Fable

The Cult Classic of the Folly of War - Newly Reissued
You will never view war in the same way after reading this extraordinary retelling of an ancient Greek fable about a tragically unnecessary battle between mice and frogs.  With haunting illustrations, this miniature masterpiece ranks with Animal Farm as one of the greatest parables of human foibles.
The Battle of the Frogs and the Mice tells in words and pictures a classic tale of the foolhardiness of war.  When Crum-snatcher, a Mouse, cautiously mounts the back of Puff-jaw, King of the Frogs, to explore the Frogs' pond, the Mouse meets with a disaster that soon brings the two nations into mortal conflict.  The course of this tempest in a teapot is developed with wit to assume heroic proportions, and the battle of this small world becomes the story of wars through the ages.
George Martin has made an imaginative, free adaptation of a fable originally ascribed to Homer but now believed to have been written about three hundred years later, by an unknown author.  The book's events are brilliantly depicted by the drawings of Fred Gwynne, a versatile artist known for his role as Herman Munster in the sitcom hit The Munsters, Gwynne's haunting and unsparing illustrations portray this chronicle from its pastoral beginning to its bitter end.  Together, Martin and Gwynne have made a book of grim delight for adults and young readers alike.