Customer Reviews

The Adventures of Old Mr. Toad

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Old Mr. Toad puzzle's Peter Rabit a LOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ferst,he thingk's that Old Mr. Toad's baby's are Grandfather Frog's baby's,then, he see's some food of Old Mr. Toad disoper,but, it is rilley just his SUPER fast tonge! And near the end of the book,Old Mr. Toad is towt a lessn.(If you want to see another ravuw, cheek in Little Joe Otter.) name: Gregor. age: six ,or, 6

Peter Rabbit and his friends return in another one of Burgess' classic children's tales of the animals of the Green Meadows and Green Forest areas. One of those animals, Mr. Toad, takes center stage in this book as he teaches us such lessons like the wisdom of thinking before talking, and thru his own humiliating experience with Buster Bear, the downside of pride.

Mr. Toad prides himself in being very smart, and he takes joy in teaching Peter Rabbit, and thru him, the book's young readers about the habits of toads. One such habit that Peter Rabbit is amazed to learn of is a toad's ability to grab flies straight out of the air with their tongue. These lessons are very descriptive and told in a fun way, amongst the humor of Peter's curiosity. I think children will find lessons such as these entertaining and a fun way to learn.

Mr. Toad is also human (so to speak), and has to deal with the same hindrances that most of the other animals in the forest have to deal with, such as the threat of predators. A not so agreeable character, Mr. Blacksnake, makes his villainous presence known in the book as he tries twice to catch and eat Mr. Toad. Obviously nothing bad happens, but we are reminded that even though this is a children's tale, the animals in the story do have to worry about survival.

I hope you give this book a try, its naturalistic messages and lessons are well constructed and perfect for young growing minds.

Darien Summers, author of The Mischievous Hare, a children's book.

Reading these books was fun for me as a child but I never enjoyed them as much as Beatrix Potter. The english author wrote in a more mature, fairy tale style that children could still relate to while these books have more of a folk tale background. However, some of Burgesses books are better than this one and I urge you to read Reddy Fox instead of Mr Toad.

This is a wonderful book and I highly recommend it. However, the prospective buyer should be informed that the illustrations in this Dover edition are NOT by the original illustrator, Harrison Cady. Instead, they are very crude redrawings by another artist, Pat Stewart. They convey very little of the charm of Harrison Cady's work.

Some of the Dover reprints of Thornton Burgess books have original Harrison Cady drawings, but many are crude redrawings by other artists. The ones by Theo Kliros are not too bad, but the ones by Pat Stewart are disappointing.

To get real Harrison Cady illustrations for this title, you'll have to buy a used book. There were two sets of original Harrison Cady illustrations for this title:
-- Published by Little, Brown, with 6 full-page grayscale illustrations.
-- Published by Grosset & Dunlap, with 14 full-page line drawings, including line-drawing versions of all 6 original grayscale illustrations in the Little, Brown editions, plus many smaller line drawings.

The redrawings in this Dover edition are of the 6 Little, Brown illustrations.

I recommend the Grosset & Dunlap editions. Cady did them decades later, after he had grown as an artist. Even though the Grosset & Dunlap line drawings are simpler than the Little, Brown grayscale illustrations, they are more charming. On the other hand, the Little, Brown grayscale illustrations better show Cady's remarkable vision for Burgess' creatures, so if you can get both, that's ideal. But either one is better than the drawings in this Dover edition.

There is character-building behind these somewhat silly but very beautiful stories.

These are terrific stories for low-key language arts building -- copy the little rhyme from every chapter, or find the adjectives, or write a similar story about... whatever lives in your back yard. It helps children look around them and notice the unusual features of every-day creatures. Burgess credits "Mother Nature" with creating them all, but we know who the REAL Creator is.