That thing is Toad!

When Frog discovers that the monster crashing through the woods covered with twigs and chocolate ice cream is his friend Toad, P. exclaims, “That thing is Toad!” The story “Ice Cream” found in Frog and Toad All Year is just one of our favorites from a series by Arnold Lobel.

Lobel’s four award winning story collections chronicle a friendship. Like any other friends, Frog and Toad can be both sweet – they compliment each other for being brave while one is hiding under the covers and the other is in the closet - and mean – Frog demonstrates will power by throwing Toad’s homemade cookies to the birds.

Written for the “I Can Read” set, these books have somewhat simple sentence structures and vocabulary. However, for the pre-reader this results in easily memorizing the words. P. even repeats lines from the book when we’re not even reading. She surprised me one day when she said to her stuffed monkey, “my best friend is trying to kill me.”

While the simple sentences pose the danger of sounding stilted when read out loud, the suspenseful plot of most of the stories keep the pages turning far past bedtime. We wonder “Is spring just around the corner?” and “Will Toad have to use the frying pan to rescue Frog?” You’ll also want to keep reading for the whimsically tinted illustrations which reveal a world of cozy cottages, curiously dressed animals (a jacket but no shirt? an amphibian in a swimsuit?), and imaginative monsters.

Although these books were first published in the seventies, no one my age seems to remember them. However I’ve inadvertently started a fan club by giving their children the books for their birthdays. One boy liked it so much he spent his next birthday at the musical, A Year with Frog and Toad. I haven’t seen it but I can already tell any show that boasts the musical number “Getta Loada Toad” has got to be worth seeing. In the meantime, is it bedtime yet?