FIREBELLY

A small, unassuming frog has a choice between a comfortable life as a pet and an adventurous life in the wild only to discover a far greater choice is possible.

Now Published in 12 Languages

Choice

I can live wild and free or safe and secure….

the choice alone immobilizes me.

Responsibility

I am so small and insignificant….

how can I do something grand and spectacular?

Possibility

Who and what I can be…

is far greater than anything I had ever imagined.

Sartre

I await myself in the future. Anguish is the fear of not finding myself there.

Kierkegaard

How dreadful boredom is. If I were offered all the glories or all the torments of the world, I would not turn over to attain or avoid.

Heidegger

When I free myself from the anxiety of death and the pettiness of life only then will I be free to become myself.

Dostoyevsky

Give man every earthly blessing, satisfy his every desire, quench his slightest thirst, and he would still destroy what he has—just to prove his freedom.

This is how I look when when I am sated.

When I fear death, this what I can become.

Would you stare or run away?

Al Ahram Al Arabi

A brilliant story … filled with lessons of will-power and the challenge and love of life in spite of difficulty.

Espresso

A story of discovery and enchantment … about the challenge of free will and the human condition … that culminates in an instant of pure magic and revelation.

Kirkus 

An engaging and quirky view of philosophy from the perspective of an unlikely sage: the Oriental Firebelly Toad.

Riley Ellis (Executive 20th Century Fox)

I have never read anything like it. This frog/toad story is more human than most of the people-centric tales I consider each day.

BookPleasures

Firebelly illuminates and elucidates the ideas of being and freedom and caring. The story is enjoyable as a tale and mind-stretching as an allegory.

New England Book Show

Gorgeous art deco stamping on the front and spine–Bravo! (Judges comments, hardcover edition English)