COMMANDER TOAD AND THE BIG
BLACK HOLE
Illustrated by Bruce Degan
Coward McCann 1983
ISBN# 0-698-30741-0 Coward hardcover
ISBN# 0-698-20594-0 Coward paperback
ISBN# 0-698-11403-5 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.
All the Commander Toad books were on Reading
Rainbow.
PaperStar
edition is in print.