A Little Pigeon Toad

I remember the Moose book, so this was fun to read with my kids for the first time - I love play on language!!

A Little Pigeon Toad is a humorous picture book written as a series of single sentence vignettes that take place in a little girl's mind. Homonyms are used throughout this story and they confuse the little girl who interprets what her parents say differently than what they meant. Gwynne's book illustrates our ridiculous English language; for example, "Daddy wants a pool table," shows a table with a pool in it and everyone's swimming. The illustrations are literal interpretations of what the little girl thinks her parents are saying. The words, easy to read, short and very simple, are intended for an audience between grades 3 and 5. But, adults or older readers would also enjoy this book.Gwynne wrote and illustrated 13 other books: The King Who Rained, A Chocolate Moose For Dinner, The Sixteen Hand Horse, The Kings Trousers, and Easy to See Why. He attended Harvard and worked as an illustrator before starring as Herman on the TV show "The Munsters". Gwynne died in 1993.

This is a delightful book to read to and with children. It introduces them not only to some of the idiosyncracies of the English language, but also to verbal humor. Fred Gwynne was not only a wonderful comic actor, but he was a great artist as well; the pictures in these books are soft and playful augmenting the confused phrases in the young girl's mind. Kids love this book and it is a joy to read.

One of the masters of illustrating the ridiculousness of English, Mr. Gwynne has done it again by taking common idioms and interpreting them literally. The reader accompanies a young girl through all sorts of different, funny English sayings and phrases and takes them all literally. In the one that is the title of the book, she stand off in a field looking at a strange animal that has the body, legs and wings of a pigeon, but the brown, bumpy head of a toad. On a beautiful 2-page spread are three grizzly bears wearing kilts and tams dancing to the music of a fourth bear who plays the bagpipes. The text reads, "Grandma says our four bears came from Scotland." Meanwhile, Daddy wants a pool table and there are three feet in a yard.As a teacher, I love to use this book to illustrate how funny and confusing English can be, even for a native speaker! When reading the book I tell them about the time when I was in elementary school and listening to the news reports of "gorilla warfare." Usually I ask students to compose and illustrate their own literal interpretation of common phrases ("hit any key to continue" is a perennial favorite).Readers who enjoy this book may wish to check out some of the other, similar play on words books by Mr. Gwynne, such as "A Chocolate Moose for Dinner" or "The King Who Rained." Another excellent author readers may enjoy is Jon Agee and his books like "Who Ordered the Jumbo Shrimp? And Other Oxymorons." Beautifully illustrated and very funny, this book is highly recommended.

This book is a wonderful guide to literal humor. I have read it to my all my classes, ranging in age from 1st grade to 5th! Everyone enjoys it! After reading it, children often want to create their own literal humor!