Frog+and+Toad+Are+Friends

=**Frog and Toad Are Friends by Arnold Lobel**=
 * **Age Range: ** 4 - 8 years
 * **Grade Level: ** Preschool - 3
 * **Paperback: ** 64 pages
 * **Publisher: ** HarperCollins; FIRST EDITIION edition (February 18, 2003)
 * **Language: ** English
 * **ISBN-10: ** 0064440206
 * **ISBN-13: ** 978-0064440202

//Author Biography //
Arnold Lobel was born on May 22, 1933 in California. He is best known for his Frog and Toad and Mouse Soup series. He is a children's book author who sticks to the theme of friendship and uses animals as his main characters. He has illustrated over 100 children's books. Arnold Lobel died from complications due to AIDS on December 4, 1987.

//Summary//
Frog and Toad Are Friends is a series of mini stories about the adventures of best friends Frog and Toad. They are short stories about friendship, adventures, and are very short and easy for children to read. One section of the book I wanted to focus on was the first story in the book, "Spring."

Spring is about waking up from hibernation and laying in the lovely month of April. The snow is melted, the sun is shining and Frog is eagerly waiting for Toad to get excited that it is spring once again! Toad is not ready to wake up from his winter nap and tells Frog to come back in May! So sneaky Frog has a plan! He tears off the paged of the calendars to the month of May and shows Frog! Excited, Toad is ready for their adventure in spring!

//Review//
I remember being a kid and loving when my mom would read to me at night. I remember her reading me the Frog and Toad series about 100 times a day! Spring was always the first story she read, and likewise it is the first story in the book! The other stories in the book were not always as entertaining to me because my birthday came in spring and my frog's name was spring! I always remember making my mom read the story to Spring when we would read together! I would love to bring this book into a classroom and do a lesson on friendship or even hibernation. I think it is a good book to use to teach because of the morals and the lessons that can be learned in the short stories!

//Analysis of a Lit. Element//
The literary element used in Frog and Toad Are Friends is making predictions as well as using the text to find the morals of the stories. Because this is a collections of short stories rolled into one book, the children can make predictions about each story just from using the title, pictures, and reading some of the story before continuing until the end. This teaches the student to use context clues to help understand what they are reading. Another literary element is finding the morals of the stories. Mostly all of the Frog and Toad short stories are about friendship and being there to help your friends when they are down and need help. Reading these books is a good way to teach students to take away a lesson from the books and use it in their own lives. This can be important in their school process because they can learn to make friends or help friends from reading these books.