Toad Heaven by Morris Gleitzman

Toad Heaven by Morris Gleitzman is a great book! It is the sequel to Toad Rage which is another wonderful book. This book is recommended for children ages 10 and above. Children younger than that will be able read it, but might not be able to interpret it right and may find it quite long. It has no foul language, but it is still very humorous. It is published by Puffin Publishers and has no illustrations. That's also another reason that kids under the age of 10 might not prefer this particular book. This book is a fantasy book because the main character is a toad that has a brain the size of human's, filled with toad thoughts.

Toad Heaven is about a toad named Limpy who wants to find a safe home where cars won't always be trying to run over them and kill them. Limpy and his family live on and Australian highway where they are always dodging zooming cars Limpy, his sister Charm, and their cousin Goliath go on a hunt which becomes an adventure to find "toad heaven". In Toad Heaven, Limpy and his family come over many disastrous moments and many hardships. Some of those moments include when another family member is killed (Limpy's other siblings) or when a SUV comes rolling by and blows sand all over their homes. Some hardships for Limpy are when he is trying to find heaven and is about to drown and die.

Morris Glietzman is Australian. Now I bet you're wondering why I'm telling you this now but this is very cool. Throughout the book, the author uses many interesting Australian words and phrases. They make this book and the rest of the series very interesting and fun to read. The definitions of these books are at the end of the book in a small glossary type thing format. Some examples are "Stack me mate" and "Squiz".

The author is also very descriptive. One of my favorite quotes is when Goliath and Charm tell Limpy why they came to rescue him instead of staying with the rest of the group "We wanted to be there for you mate, because ever since we saw the message from the fly we knew you were alive and in trouble". This quote is very descriptive and just this one sentence helped me visualize a very big picture and helped me understand a lot of things that happened previously. His sentences act like puzzle pieces that put a big puzzle together and in this case a big story. The visualizations are also the reason that this book is only 193 pages long and not longer. It also makes the story more interesting to read. Through out the whole book, I can picture humans driving right over the poor helpless toads. This is also one of the reasons I think the author didn't use many pictures in his book.

After reading this book I will never kill a toad, not that I have ever even seen a toad but... This book becomes very emotional. I recommend that this book is read by people who like adventure/survival and enjoy reading about the life of a toad. You should also be prepared for a few small deaths.

This book consists of fast moving actions and not very much dialogue. Even though, you'll still never get bored of reading this book. Also one of the most important questions that might pop up in your mind is "What if I was a toad?" This question popped up in my mind throughput the whole book. I also think that to improve the book, the author could've put in some pictures in some parts because than readers could see the real looks of the characters.

All in all, I think Toad Heaven is a wonderful book if you like to read books that are a point of view from the animal. I strongly recommend reading this book because if fits nicely in the fantasy world of literature. With talking frogs shooting poison pus, what will happen to the mighty Limpy; will he find a safe home or not?