Frog and Toad Forty Years Later
Frog and Toad stayed on the island all afternoon, they ate wet sandwiches without iced tea. They were two close friends sitting alone together. This is one of my favorite quotes, lines rather, from a favorite story. A very simple story, Alone, one of the many Frog and Toad stories written by Arnold Lobel. As they find themselves in various situations and predicaments, Frog and Toad delight children and impart profoundly simple wisdom about the necessity, commitment and significance of friendship to adults reading the stories to children. I missed out on Lobel’s stories the first time around; most were written in the 1970s, a decade after my easy-reader days. But twenty years later, my childhood best friend, who worked in children’s publishing and television in California sent me Days with Frog and Toad, the book and cassette tape. I tucked them away for the time when we had children, five years later, in 1995. Then on one of the many sleepless nights I sat rocking ...