This is an original, children’s story written and illustrated by Alex Inglewood,
with help from GPT-3 and Stable Diffusion.
For ages 5-8
Estimated reading time: 5-10 minutes
Deep in a forest there was a frog who was small and green, with big eyes that bulged out of its head. It had webbed feet that helped it swim through the water, and a long, sticky tongue that it used to catch bugs. It lived in a pond ringed with long reeds and tall trees. The frog spent its days swimming with its friends, the fish, catching bugs to eat, and hiding from birds who might eat it.
One day a shadow fell over the pond, so as usual the frog hid deep under the water. But this was no ordinary shadow. A great fire erupted and engulfed his pond in flames. A dragon! As soon as it appeared it was then gone, and the frog emerged to find the pond far tinier than before. The trees were burning, the reeds were gone, and the pond was a tiny portion of its previous size. There were no more bugs to eat and the fishes were struggling to survive in the shallow water.
“Help! Help!” cried the fishes.
“What can I do?” asked the frog.
“The rain will soon come and refill the pond, but that will not matter if that dragon comes back! You can travel over land and stop it!” said a fish.
“But I’m just a little frog. I am no match for a big dragon.”
Sad at the sight of his friends struggling and filled with doubt, the frog hopped off through the remains of the forest to find the dragon. After some time, he came upon a village. The frog swayed its head from side to side, taking in the burning ruins before it. It hopped carefully around the perimeter of the village, careful to avoid the still smoldering embers. In the distance, it could hear the dragon’s satisfied roar as it flew away.
“I am just a little frog. What can I do against a big dragon?” he thought. But still he hopped on, determined to help his fish friends.
Soon the frog came upon quite a scene: a knight on horseback fighting the dragon! He wished he could help, but he was no match for a dragon, so he hid and watched. The knight and dragon battled fiercely. The dragon breathed fire, and the knight swung his sword. Eventually the knight fled on his horse, afraid he would get eaten.
The dragon spread its wings to fly away. The frog was scared, but he knew he needed to stop this dragon before it hurt anyone else.
“Hey you!” croaked the frog as it hopped out from its hiding place.
The dragon turned, thinking it was about to get attacked by another great foe. It was surprised to see just a frog sitting on a log.
“What do you want?” the dragon hissed, curious that such a small animal would face it.
“I want you to stop destroying everything!”
“Foolish frog. Nothing will stop me. I hunger. That knight got away. I will eat you instead.”
The frog moved quickly to escape, but it was not fast enough. The dragon swallowed it whole in one bite. The dragon took off in search of a bigger meal. It soared through heavy clouds and saw a nearby farm with fields full of sheep. Swooping down low, it reared its head and was about to roast the farm and the flock of sheep when suddenly the dragon felt very sick. It landed and coughed. With a great roar it fell and died.
After a few moments, the little frog popped out of the dead dragon’s mouth. The frog was poisonous! Glad to be alive, the frog hopped off back to its pond as rain began to fall. When it returned, the frog saw the pond was slowly getting bigger, with the fish swimming more freely in the fresh water. The frog smiled and joined its friends, happy that peace had come again to his pond.
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Learn more about how I wrote this free kids story and made the title image using an AI art generator in my Making of Little Frog, Big Dragon post.
You can also learn more about why we use AIs to make free kids stories in our dedicated post about it.