The Children’s Book Review | March 29, 2018
Peggy Archer’s Selfie with A Hippy-Hoppy Toad
I’m standing in front of one of the bookshelves in my writing room. This is the first selfie that I’ve taken that shows more than half of my face! I confess, my husband helped tap the screen to take the picture.
I’m very excited about the release of A Hippy-Hoppy Toad this month! It’s the story of a teeny-tiny toad’s adventure in the park and has some fun language, like ‘raggy-shaggy tree’ and a ‘happy-snappy cricket.’ The idea for this book came from a walk in the park where we saw a teeny-tiny toad sitting in the middle of a puddle on the path. By the time we finished our walk, I was half way through the first verse! I got a little more written over the next few days, then put it aside to finish another project. A year later, back at the same park, we were walking with our grandson. We stepped onto a dirt path and suddenly discovered hundreds of teeny-tiny toads hopping around! That was all the inspiration that I needed to finish the story!
Peggy Archer’s Shelfie
This bookshelf sits in the large walk-in closet in my writing room. It would probably give you a clue that I have a hard time parting with books! And that sometimes bookshelves are meant to hold other things, too.
This second bookshelf might tell you that I like nostalgia and things related to books and reading. The bookcase belonged to my husband’s aunt, and is filled with old books including my Nancy Drew books from the 50’s and a few of my husband’s Roy Rogers books.
When we moved to this house we brought forty boxes of books with us! I chose this bedroom as my office because of the large walk-in closet. There are four other bookshelves in this room, and more in other rooms in the house.
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Written by Peggy Archer
Illustrated by Anne Wilsdorf
Publisher’s Synopsis: From the illustrator of the award-winning Sophie’s Squash comes a rollicking read-aloud featuring a very tiny toad who gets displaced as animals–and humans–brush past him on the road.
In the middle of a puddle
in the middle of a road
on a teeter-totter twig
sat a teeny-tiny toad.
Snap! went the twig!
Up went the toad!
And he landed on a tree
by the side of the road.
It’s hard to be a tiny toad minding your own business on a twig. First a bird pecks at him. . . . Then a bee buzzes. . . . Then a dog barks . . . and so on. And each time the toad is surprised by a buzz or a woof (or the toe of a sneaker!), he hops to a new location farther down the road. With fun sounds, clever rhymes, and an irresistible rhythm, this is the perfect story for sharing one-on-one or in a group.
Ages 3-7 | Publisher: Schwartz & Wade | 2018 | ISBN-13: 978-0399556760
Available Here:
About the Author
Peggy Archer is the author of Name that Dog: Puppy Poems from A to Z and From Dawn to Dreams: Poems for Busy Babies, among other books. A Hippy-Hoppy Toad won the 2015 Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators Work-in-Progress Award. You can follow Peggy Archer on Twitter at @PeggyAArcher and visit her at peggyarcher.com.
Discover more books like “A Hippy-Hoppy Toad,” written by Peggy Archer and illustrated Anne Wilsdorf, by checking out our reviews and articles tagged with Animals, Books With Toads, Picture Book, and Rhyming Text; and be sure to follow along with our Selfie and a Shelfie series.