A Toad for Tuesday

"A small-scale Wind in the Willows, with adventure and charm." --ALA Booklist Starred Review, Aug 1974

"A genuinely nice story . . . As a parable of friendship, A Toad for Tuesday will serve its readers any day of the week" --The New York Times, Sept 29, 1974

Just in time for its 50th anniversary, this beloved classic tale of adventure, compassion, and friendship has been remade for a new generation of young readers, including text revisions and fully colorized original illustration on the cover. A favorite chapter book is back, for read aloud or read alone.

While on a journey to visit his aunt, Warton the Toad is captured by a surly owl who announces plans to eat Warton for his birthday dinner on the upcoming Tuesday. As he awaits his fate, Warton works gamely to make his remaining days as pleasant as possible while he also seeks some way to escape and tries to convince the owl to let him go.

Naturally, Warton and Owl talk. But what the pair don't realize is how quickly even the oddest of friendships may form.

Kirkus Reviews, Aug 1974: Here are these two toads, Warton and Morton. Even though they're snowbound for the winter, Warton wants to take his Aunt Toolia a box of Morton's special beetle brittle, so he builds a pair of skis and starts off. In the middle of the wooded valley Warton is captured by an owl who plans to save him for a special birthday dinner, but the innately civilized Warton ingratiates himself with evening teas and much house tidying. And even when he is rescued by a platoon of skiing mice, he stops to save George, the owl, from a fox and learns that his captor had a change of heart and was out looking for some nice juniper berry tea. Erickson approaches each new adventurous turn of events with open-eyed wonder ("Warton was speechless. Never had he seen so many mice at one time, and all on skis!"), and Di Fiori's careful, detailed drawings take the animals' unusual domestic situations in stride. Warton's winning ways may play havoc with the food chain, but this neat, humane toad, dressed in his rundown houseslippers and enjoying Morton's tasty ant egg sandwiches, is thoroughly lovable -- and full of surprises.  

School Library Journal, starred review, Aug 1974: One winter day Warton, a toad, straps on his skis to visit an aunt who lives on the other side of the woods. But a hungry owl interrupts the tiny toad's journey and vows to eat Warton. Can Warton convince the owl to change his mind? A small-scale Wind in the Willows.

The New York Times, September 29, 1974: One has grown so accustomed to grim children's books in this grimmest of all possible worlds that a genuinely nice children's story comes as a surprise. Gone, for a moment, are urban problems, divorce, sex, drugs, death, the ghetto—and in their place pops up the story of a toad. Warton.

Warton lives deep in the ground with his brother Morton, who loves to cook. One snowy day he sets out on a journey to take his aunt some beetle brittle, and is pounced on by a misanthropic owl. The owl, George, drags him home with the express purpose of eating him on Tuesday—because Tuesday is his birthday and he wants a special treat. However, Warton's nature is so essentially cheerful, optimistic and kind—that he cannot help but make friends with George, and soon they are having tea and sharing a few confidences.

A hausfrau at heart, Warton begins to tidy up George's tree‐home and it is not long before the two bachelors are living together in the manner of “The Odd Couple.” But gloomy George insists that he is going to devour Warton, and so Warton plans an escape whose limited genius depends on making a rope ladder out of his sweater. Unexpectedly, he is rescued by hundred mice (on homemade skis), and in a most satisfying denouement, the villainous owl is proved to be a softy. 

There is a buoyant quality to this little book—and its spirit is so basically loving that it would take a sadistic reviewer to say anything unkind about it. One could mention, I suppose, that the black and white illustrations are a bit pedestrian and that the prose, at times, gets rather Wind‐in‐the‐Willowy. But no matter. As a parable on friendship, “A Toad for Tuesday” will serve its readers any day in the week.