Commander Toad and the Planet of the Grapes

COMMANDER TOAD & THE PLANET OF THE GRAPES

Illustrated by Bruce Degan

Coward McCann 1982

ISBN# 0-698-30736-4 Coward hardcover

ISBN# 0-698-20540-5 Coward paperback

ISBN# 0-698-11353-5 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.

Accolades:

• This book was a Junior Literary Guild Book.
• All the Commander Toad books were on Reading Rainbow.