Adrianne Lobel Unearths a Pre-Frog and Toad Poetry Collection

Children's literature is filled with wonderful friendships. One of my very favorites is the relationship between Frog and Toad in the four easy reader books Arnold Lobel published about the pair. Frog is tall, green and level-headed; Toad is short, brown and emotional. Together, they turn ordinary occasions into grand adventures and cause frequent bouts of laughter. I've read each of their stories many times, so I was delighted when my aunt mentioned to me over the summer that Lobel's daughter had unearthed several unpublished Frog and Toad stories.

I soon discovered, however, that this new collection of old material is not about the specific Frog and Toad I know and love. Instead, The Frogs and Toads All Sang features ten poems about various frogs and toads. The poems are short and are accompanied by paintings done by Adrianne Lobel, based on her father's line drawings. In the introduction, she explains how she came upon these poems and pictures, which were gifts given to family friends, and reminisces about her father. The bulk of the book, meanwhile, features the poem-and-picture pairs, with the words on one page and illustration on the facing page, except in one instance in which both stretch across a two-page spread.

Each of the rhyming poems is about 12 lines long, give or take a line. Some involve just frogs, some just toads, and some both. In keeping with the color scheme in the Frog and Toad stories, all of the frogs are green, while the toads are brownish or yellowish. Most are very cheerful, with a notable exception being the morose frog in Bright Green Frog, whose sadness is a result of a talent for an instrument for which he has no passion. Several end with a little joke. My favorite is Miss Frog Went in the Kitchen, which involves a frog who loves to bake but isn't too anxious to share her confections.  I also like the wisdom of Made for Toads, which concludes with the assertion, "In weather gray / Or weather bright, / For some, the day / Will be just right."

Frog and Toad books include five stories each. Though the tales are short, they feel much more substantial than these poems, which are fun to read but breeze by so quickly that ten hardly seems enough. While Frog and Toad have been known to make me laugh out loud many times, this book scarcely inspired a chuckle. However, I did smile throughout my reading of it, as I expect other fans of Lobel to do. As a stand-alone work, The Frogs and Toads All Sang might not make a very big impression, but as a peek into Lobel's past and a demonstration of a powerful father-daughter bond, the book is a lovely little treasure.