way over the crossing near the Bermudiana Hotel, she was moved by his plight.

Gently picking him up, she deposited him safely in the branch of a nearby tree before going on her way.

But the image of that miniscule fellow, hopping about in the hot sunshine stayed at the back of her mind for about three years.

Now she feels she has something in common with the princess in the fairytale who rescued a fish which, in turn, repaid the princess by putting some sort of magic back into her life. For out of that chance encounter, Elizabeth Muldgerig has created a rather magical book, ostensibly for children, but one which Bermuda's adults will probably enjoy just as much.

A comical, rhyming text adorned with bright and colourful illustrations traces the story of Tiny the Tree Frog, who decides to stay awake one day so that he can go off and see the sights on his Island home.

Miss Mulderig is a well-known local artist who says: "I don't like talking about my paintings because that is why I paint. That's my form of expression, rather than talking.'' In spite of that declaration, she goes on to eloquently explain the motivation behind a book that reflects her complex talent.

"Sometimes, those of us who live in Bermuda tend to take it for granted. Our eyes are shut to the sights that tourists find breathtaking. We might as well be asleep, for all that we actually see and notice, so it seemed the perfect answer to use a tree frog -- who normally does sleep during the day and wakes up at night -- to re-awaken our awareness of Bermuda's natural beauty and environment.'' Her life-long love affair with the Island was reinforced when she and her family left for the US when she was nine-years-old. "I was so homesick. No fourth or fifth graders are ever nostalgic about places, but I couldn't stop talking about Bermuda and how much I missed it. All the other kids got fed up with me!'' Her friendship with Bermudian Moira Stott and their mutual love of ballet ensured that her ties with the Island endured. "We hatched up this brilliant plan, so that she would spend half the summer in New York with me, and then I'd return with her to Bermuda. But after a couple of weeks, she would get sick of the city so we come down here early!'' She says that although art was always her first love (she claims that her first way of getting attention was by being good at colouring and drawing) she became entrenched in the ballet world, studying with Patricia Gray, Sallie Singleton and Madame Ana Roje. Her obvious abilities as a dancer saw her go on to study with the Harkness and American Ballet Theatre when she was about 15 and for a time, she thought of making dance her career.

Her parents, however, had other ideas and insisted that she should enlarge her options by going to college. This led to a period where she majored in "about a thousand things'', before finally settling on English Literature.

Rather to her surprise, she says, she obtained her degree from Boston University.

But it was while she was there, that art began to pull its seductive strings.

"They have a very good art department there and I started hanging around. All that exposure and being around painters made me realise that this was what I wanted to do. I had been fearful of trying art as a career when I stopped ballet because I was scared of another failure, but now I decided to go right ahead.'' With a family "heavily into professionalism'' (her elder brother, Robert, is Chairman and CEO of Mutual Risk Management), she was persuaded to study for a time at a fashion design institute. "The thought of my actually becoming a painter, out there in la-la land simply wasn't on, so we compromised,'' she says with a rueful smile. For a while, in New York, she also became a script reader for a British film production company.

It was through a composer friend who won the Prix de Rome, and took her off to that city that she became totally embroiled in the world of the arts. "I met so many artists, writers and musicians in that city, I was becoming determined to try and join that world.'' Then fate took what, at the time, was a terrifying hand in Elizabeth Mulderig's future. She was involved in a horrific car accident in the US. For a while, her life hung in the balance, the recovery slow, very painful, and, she believes, miraculous.

Her painting became increasingly important to her. "In the end, I was given carte blanch to get on with it. My family were so relieved I hadn't died! Wasn't that rather an extreme method to get my own way?'' In any case, her solo show at the Windjammer Gallery just one year later, in which she sold almost all her work, "caused everyone to have a change of attitude!'' She has never looked back.

Elizabeth Mulderig says that her work has probably been most influenced by two schools, that of the primitive and the surreal. "What they both have in common for me is that they are on a dream-like level and it seems there is something of me in them. Also, both are heavily steeped in fantasy but firmly rooted in reality.'' In Tiny the Tree Frog, this is perhaps best illustrated by her attention to delightful, down-to-earth detail in a world that also sports cotton-candy clouds, giant flowers and outsize butterflies, all seen through a brilliant veneer of intense colours.

The verses, she says, almost wrote themselves. "I first wrote down the basics in about three hours.'' In a tour that takes in most of Bermuda's famous landmarks, Tiny tries to keep awake, and his senses about him, as he leaps on the back of a horse and buggy, to visit ancient forts and churches (her picture of Tiny confronted with the challenging flight of steps up to St. Peter's is one of the loveliest in the book), the perfume factory and crystal caves, beaches and the aquarium, the lighthouse, Dockyard and perhaps, most descriptive of all, the passage over the world's smallest drawbridge: ....the ride was so bumpy That Tiny was vexed .

There are some lovely touches in this book. Notice, for instance, how Tiny suns himself on the beach, but is careful to place his cherished camera in the shade under an umbrella, or how his little tongue, twists with laborious effort as he fishes from Devil's Hole.

And, reflecting Miss Mulderig's background, no one will deny that this particular tree frog is a graceful chap, in a balletic sort of way, who reveals a beautifully arched foot as he hangs on to the mast of a sailboat and rises on tip-toes to increase his view of the world.

"But the main message of this book,'' she says, "is to Bermuda's children. I want them to realise that it's a great gift to live here. I've travelled extensively, yet Bermuda remains the most enchanting place I have ever seen.

We all need reminders of that every once in a while and hopefully, Tiny the Tree Frog can be just that -- a reminder of the special nature of Bermuda.'' Tiny the Tree Frog, written and illustrated by Elizabeth Mulderig, is on sale at all major stores and costs $15.

TINY TAKES IT EASY -- Elizabeth Mulderig, author and illustrator of Tiny the Tree Frog, with one of the pictures from her book.