Frog and Toad by Arnold Lobel

The Frog and Toad Collection

These are my favorite children’s books, which I discovered only recently and as an adult. I hope I would have liked them as much if I’d found them as a child. The friends Frog and Toad live a series of illustrated adventures, each episode about twelve pages long and written at the Dr. Seuss level of learning to read.

The author and illustrator Arnold Lobel accomplishes a lot with the drawings of Frog and Toad: they resemble real amphibians, they are somehow both endearing and unattractive, adorably ugly. Their eyes are lumps spaced wide atop their heads, their mouths are long drooping frowns, and with the slightest changes in position each can express the spectrum of emotion. They wear open jackets over bare chests and pants belted high above their waists, never any shirts or shoes, except in winter when they wear huge bulky coats they appear stuffed into like packaging. They have a manner like old men, simultaneously dignified and ridiculous. Without a trace of effort at a joke or drama, the pictures of Frog and Toad make me both laugh and feel for them.

The activities of each episode define wholesome: Frog and Toad go sledding, they eat cookies, they plant gardens. They have funny misunderstandings and alternatively are as carefree as or have the worries of children. They do and say unbearably cute things; I had to put the book down for a moment after Frog told Toad he’d written him a letter saying, “‘Dear Toad, I am glad that you are my best friend. Your best friend, Frog.’” In the story “The List”, Toad writes a daily planner with the same items a toddler would have:

A List of Things To Do Today:

Wake up

Eat Breakfast

Get Dressed

Go to Frog’s House

Take walk with Frog

Eat lunch

Take nap

Play games

Eat Supper

Go To Sleep

The stories don’t reach their potential until the last story of the first book, but from there forward the humor and sweetness are at full stride. At their best these stories seem to access something elemental about what is funny and what is sweet; with only an image and a few words Lobel can achieve tremendous feeling. I think of how a lot of material for children is said to have appeal for kids, but also separate jokes for the adults to enjoy. Frog and Toad is different than that, tapped in closer to the source, the same material appeals in the same way to both the child and the adult, and for the same reasons.

I have to record my favorite moment of Frog and Toad here, although I might be unique in how much I enjoy it. In the story Dragons and Giants, Frog and Toad read a book of fairy tales.

“The people in this book are brave,” said Toad. “They fight dragons and giants, and they are never afraid.”

“I wonder if we are brave,” said Frog.

Frog and Toad looked into a mirror.

(Here is an illustration of the shirtless, frowning, proud and silly old men who are Frog and Toad, admiring their dull expressions reflected in the mirror.)

“We look brave,” said Frog.

“Yes, but are we?” asked Toad.

This is funny to me for as many reasons as I find things funny.