Scientific Answers to the Mysteries of Children's Literature

There's a fun story about doing some scientific inquiry into the books we read our kids again, and again, and again.

From the piece in the New York Times...

“Frog and Toad Are Friends”

The central theme of Arnold Lobel’s 1970 classic of the anthropomorphic oeuvre is that these tailless amphibians are fast friends. But what about in the real world — are toads and frogs capable of such friendship?

A 2009 paper in the research journal Oecologia examined what happened when cane toads were introduced into the environment of native frogs in Australia. Far from being an ecological disaster, there were some unexpected benefits for the frogs, although it came at a cost that might be better suited to a grisly Greek myth than a children’s book. When frogs consumed toad eggs, which were toxic, both populations suffered; however, the frog tadpoles that survived grew bigger and healthier.

In other words, the reason that Lobel did not create a scientifically accurate portrayal of frogs and toads is that the title would have been something on the order of “Frog Eats Toad’s Poisonous Unborn Children, Gets Sick and Dies (but Frog’s Younger Cousin Thrives!).”