Days with Frog and Toad — Chapter 4

Narration Prompt

Summarize the chapter's argument or narrative arc, then identify the central tension and evaluate whether the author handles it honestly.

Discussion Questions

1. Toad's refusal to trade the too-large hat — "This hat is your present to me. I like it. I will wear it the way it is" — implies a theory of gifts in which the object is secondary to the relationship the object instantiates. Argue whether this theory is more honest than the prevailing adult practice of returning ill-fitting gifts, or whether it is sentimentally exaggerated. Where does each theory work, and where does each fail?
2. Frog allows Toad to believe that his big thoughts grew his head and never corrects him. Construct an account of this silence that is neither lying nor telling the truth in the usual senses. Each available account commits Lobel to a different theory of what friends owe each other in the way of truth-telling. Which theory does the chapter as a whole most rigorously support, and where would the theory fail in less symmetrical or more consequential cases?

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