From late Caldecott Medalist Arnold Lobel comes a brand-new collection of rhyming stories about frogs and toads. Discovered by his daughter Adrianne, these poems have the same warmth, compassion, and humor that is found in his best-loved work.

Arnold Lobel's The Frog and Toads All Sang is a collection of poems that were originally intended only as handmade gifts for friends, but is now combined in a wonderful collection for you and your child to enjoy. The fun cartoons characters are sketched in pencil and flourished with water color, a collaborative effort between Lobel and his daughter who insists her father taught her, "Don't be afraid to color outside the lines." Each poem has rhyming and a steady reading rhythm with dialogue from the characters for fun reading aloud opportunities. Using distinctive and silly voices for the different characters is a sure way to increase the entertainment factor for your little one.

The poems are riddled with humor for readers to enjoy, whether it's frog and toad dancing together in lemonade to "cool their feet," the polliwogs who go to school only to "squirm and giggle," or the violin-playing frog who really wishes he played the clarinet. The stories within the poems will also stoke children's imagination; not only do all of the frogs talk, but they also bake, drive, and one even jumps to the moon! Your little one may wonder if frogs and toads live in some secret part of the world where only cartoons are, and really do all silly things in the poems. Young readers will quickly find their favorite poems in the collection and beg to have them read over and over again.

My four-year-old nice, Emily, liked the picture of the frog in a fur cloak the best; she dug out her play boa and repeated the line, "I do not worry...Outside I'm nicely soft and furry." I couldn't help but laugh at that, which only encouraged her until she said we should also dance in some lemonade like the frogs. I had to nix that idea, but I did agree to dress up and dance around - sans lemonade.

--Audra