[It is indeed a frog. With a colorful hat that he is currently decorating. He thought it might be a little more fun for the children (and easier to draw).

To her question, he can simply shrug.] I happened upon a job posting asking for storytellers for children. As there are no shortage of exciting tales from our world, I thought I would put my talents as a bard to good use.

[A pause as he changes colors to fill in the rest of the hat.] Unfortunately... in my eagerness I neglected to note that they wanted the stories illustrated until I had already accepted.