Days with Frog and Toad — Chapter 1

About This Passage

Selected because Toad's two short sentences contain the whole problem of the story in seventeen words. Lobel teaches dialogue punctuation — a comma inside the quotation marks, a period after Toad — and shows how a character's words can sound harmless while quietly setting up trouble.

Narration Prompt

Tell someone what happened in this story in order. When you get to the most important part, slow down and tell it carefully — what happened, why it mattered, and what you think about it.

Discussion Questions

1. When Toad first wakes up and sees his messy house, he says, "I will do it tomorrow," and pulls the covers over his head. But then he sits on the edge of the bed and tells Frog, "I feel down in the dumps." Why does Toad feel so bad if he just decided not to do any work? What in the story makes you think so?
2. Toad says, "Today I will take life easy." But by the end of the story, he has scrubbed his windows, washed his dishes, watered his plants, and dusted his chairs. Did Toad really take life easy, or did he find out something different about what easy means? What in the story makes you think so?

+ 2 more questions in the complete study guide