Frog and Toad agreed: it
was a perfect day for a swim. And Frog was kind enough not to look
at Toad in his bathing suit, per Toad''s request. But when the
swimming was over, a crowd had gathered to see Toad in his
funny-looking suit, and neither Frog nor Toad could make them
leave.
The endearing pair hop
along through five enchanting stories, looking for lost buttons,
greeting the spring, and waiting for mail. Their genuine care for
each other makes Frog and Toad two of the finest amphib
內容簡介:
The best of friends From writing letters to going swimming,
telling stories to finding lost buttons, Frog and Toad are always
there for each other -- just as best friends should be.
During his distinguished career Arnold Lobel wrote andor
illustrated over 70 books for children. To his illustrating credit,
he had a Caldecott Medal book -- Fables 1981 -- and two Caldecott
Honor Books-his own Frog and Toad are Friends 1971 and Hildilid''s
Night by Cheli Duran Ryan 1972. To his writing credit, he had a
Newbery Honor Book -- Frog and Toad Together 1973. But to his
greatest credit, he had a following of literally millions of young
children with whom he shared the warmth and humor of his
unpretentious vision of life.
Though he was a born storyteller -- he began making up stories
extemporaneously to entertain his fellow second-graders in
Schenectady, New York, where he grew up in the care of his
grandparents. Mr. Lobel called himself a "lucky amateur" in terms
of his writing. Viewing himself as a professionally trained
illustrator he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Pratt
Institute, he said, "I know how to draw pictures. With writing, I
don''t really know what I''m doing. It''s very intuitive."
In addition to the Frog and Toad books, Owl at Home, Mouse
Tales, The Book of Pigericks, and many other popular books he
created, Mr. Lobel also illustrated other writers'' texts that
captured his fancy. He viewed this as "something different and
challenging." Often his illustrations for those books showed a
different aspect of his personality and his artistic expertise,
ranging from his meticulous dinosaurs in Dinosaur Time by Peggy
Parish to his chilling pen-and-ink drawings in Nightmares: Poems to
Trouble Your Sleep by Jack Prelutsky, about which Booklist wrote,
"Young readers will be amazed that the gentle Lobel of Frog and
Toad fame can be so comfortably diabolic."
In 1977 Mr. Lobel and his wife, Anita, a distinguished
children''s book author and artist in her own right, collaborated on
their first book, How the Rooster Saved the Day, chosen by School
Library Journal as one of the Best Books of the Year, 1977. They
then collaborated on three more books, A Treeful of Pigs, a 1979
ALA Notable Book; On Market Street, a 1982 Caldecott Honor Book;
and The Rose in My Garden, a 1984 Boston GlobeHorn Book Honor
Book.
Arnold Lobel died in 1987.