The Toad (Disgusting Critters)

by Elise Gravel

[Joni Reads]

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange f0r an honest review.

This is a really cute and educational book on, what else, toads! I had a blast reading this with my daughter. At first it tells you all about different types of toads like one that grows a mustache of spikes! My daughter thought that was pretty cool. She even drew picture of it after we read the book. Then it goes into more detail about the common toad- what it eats, where it lives, etc. The information was presented in a very easy to understand way and it made it really fun to learn about because the illustrations were funny and made my daughter laugh.

Speaking of the illustrations, I loved the bright colors of the book. The bright pink was the perfect color to get my daughter to want to read a book about a topic that she usually would have called a boy book. The drawings of the toads were pretty cute, for example the book tells you that toads shed and then eat their skin and the illustration shows the toad with ketchup and plate and silverware in front of them, which made my daughter giggle.

Also addressed towards the end is why we needs toads and how we need to keep the Earth a clean place so toads can live here and not get sick. It was good lesson on taking care of the environment without being preachy or hogging the topic of the book.

I would read more books in The Disgusting Critter Series with my daughter. We both really enjoyed this and it was fun to have her draw what she learned afterwards. I think if I read any other ones from this series I will find some extra activities to go along with the book to make it extra fun but even without those this book was a very entertaining and educational read.