Before You Leap

Written by	Kermit the Frog, (Jim Lewis)
Published	September 5, 2006
Publisher	Disney
ISBN	0696232324

Before You Leap: A Frog's-Eye View of Life's Greatest Lessons is a 224-page hardcover book written by Kermit the Frog, published in September 2006.

As Kermit explains in the introduction, the book is split into two parts: "First, it's a book about my life. Second, it's a book about your life."

The first third of the book, "A Frog's Life", tells the story of the Muppets, from Kermit's point of view. He leaves the swamp, and heads to Washington, D.C., where he meets Jim Henson and stars in Sam and Friends. The Muppet gang moves to New York City, where Rowlf becomes the first Muppet star on The Jimmy Dean Show. Kermit moves on to Sesame Street, then The Muppet Show, and then on to the big screen. As the story progresses, Kermit describes his relationships with his friends, including Fozzie, Gonzo and, of course, Miss Piggy.

In the second part of the book, "Lessons for Your Life", Kermit takes a crack at a number of popular self-improvement fads. The chapter titles spoofing self-help hits include "The Seven Dreams of Highly Effective Amphibians", "When Bad Things Happen to Good Frogs", "Don't Sweat the Small Bugs (And They're All Small Bugs)", "Moving Your Own Cheese" and "Fridays with Fozzie". In these chapters, Kermit offers advice on how to live one's life, filtered through his own experiences.

Kermit's friends make many appearances throughout the book -- as examples of life lessons, and occasionally interrupting the text to speak for themselves. The book is illustrated with approximately 100 photos of Kermit and the Muppets.

Trivia

• The initial working title was A Frog's Life: Where I've Been and the Lessons I've Learned, and a cover image was released under that name, identical to the current one apart from the lettering.

• A Sesame Street sketch from the early 1980s featuring Kermit at home, begins with Kermit at the typewriter thinking out loud about what to call the book he appears to be writing. One possibility he comes up with is "It's a Frog's Life, by K the F," part of which was the original title for this book.