Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Frog and Toad

The Frog and Toad series are some of my favorite kid books of all time. I can't get over the way this guy (Arnold Lobel) writes. In fact, if there is any writer I wish I could write like (other than Tom Robbins... and G.K. Chesterton...), it's Arnold Lobel.

The Frog and Toad books are engagingly full of pathos, friendship, humor and some of the most straightforward, simple and profound sentences you'll find anywhere. I wish I was a book critic so I would know better how to say nice things about these books.

I'd read them even if I didn't have kids. I so totally wish I could write like him.

3 comments:

Gabe said...

There's a lot of writing by Chesterton. If I could only buy 5, which ones should they be?

Unknown said...

Only 5? :)

Ah, where to begin? I suppose it depends on what you're looking for. You could easily go with five of his novels - I'd suggest Manalive, The Napoleon of Notting Hill, The Ball and the Cross, The Man Who Was Thursday and any collection of the Father Brown stories.

Then there's the theology - Orthodoxy is certainly at the top of that list, along with the bio's of St. Francis and St. Thomas Acquinas.I hear The Everlasting Man is good, but (gasp!) I haven't read it yet.

And if you're interested in the man himself, his autobiography was fascinating. And his book Eugenics and Other Evils was fantastic too.

That's the problem - all his books were outstanding.

For an overall intro to GKC, I'd suggest these five (in order): Orthodoxy, Manalive, St. Francis, Eugenics and Other Evils and his Autobiography.

But really, you can't go wrong...

Gabe said...

Sweet. I looked for some of his stuff at the library today. They didn't have anything at the particular location I visited, but did at another branch across town. Sheesh! Distributed libraries are cool and they also aren't so cool.