Days with Frog and Toad-Arnold Lobel

Days with Frog and Toad
The book Days with Frog and Toad, written by Arnold Lobel, is a well recognized and awarded Children’s Fiction Picture book. It come from a list of various f other “Frog and Toad” books, some of which having won the Newberry or Caldecott.
This specific book of the series shares short stories about 5 different occurrences for them. Toad comes across each obstacle (from a lesson in procrastination in “Tomorrow” to a touching story of friendship in “Alone”). Every story shows how a good friend should act; children enjoy reading these stories because they can see themselves in one or the other characters shoes.
The illustrations in this book are blander than most other children’s books. The color choice is dull but still reflects their personalities by making the naïve Toad brown and wiser Frog dark green. The pictures mimic the text, making this a possible selection to give to students having harder time learning to read. The illustrations are cartoonistic, putting a focus on lines to emphasize. On some of the pages, the artwork is placed randomly around the page, and sometimes takes the same amount of space as the text. It makes the text more fun to read.
Overall, I believe the book Days with Frog and Toad would be a great book to assign students in a lower elementary level class. It could be used to go along with a theme of friendship because of the relationship Toad and Frog have with each other in the stories. Also, it is a great book to get students excited about higher levels of reading due to the books transitioning from a picture book into a chapter book form.

Lobel, Arnold. Days with Frog and Toad. New York: Scholastic Inc., 1979.