COMMANDER TOAD IN SPACE Illustrated by Bruce Degan Coward McCann 1980 ISBN# 0-698-30724-0 Coward hardcover ISBN# 0-698-20522-7 Coward paperback ISBN#0-698-11355-1 PaperStar paperback

I began the COMMANDER TOAD books because I saw an article in the local newspaper about a boy and his frog who had just won a jumping-frog contest. The frog's name was "Star Warts." I thought it would be funnier if the frog had been a toad, since the old superstition is that toads gives you warts. (It isn't true, of course.) So I invented frog and toads in space on a ship called "Star Warts." Every book is riddled with puns. (I love puns!) There are seven Commander Toad books altogether, though I have been thinking about possibly writing an eighth. A half-hour television show was made with puppets about Commander Toad but it wasn't very successful. For some reason, several of the characters were changed--Jake into a human boy and Doc Pepper into a turtle--and the ship's name was changed as well to "Stella." Also all the puns were missing.

This book was a Garden State Children's Book Award winner and a Junior Literary Guild Book. All the Commander Toad books were on Reading Rainbow. All six in the series won Golden Duck Awards, as best children's SF Recommended Books.

          Paperstar edition is in print.

Recording: There is an audio tape of COMMANDER TOAD IN SPACE from Listening Library.

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