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Kids who enjoyed Morris Gleitzman’s first Australian cane toad book, Toad Rage, will be happy to know that Limpy and the other cane toads are back in the sequel, Toad Heaven. Limpy, the young cane toad with a limp from an encounter with a car when he was a baby, is still looking for a way to keep the humans from trying to run them over on the highway so that his family can lead safe lives. With the help of cousin Goliath and sister Charm, Limpy begins looking for the mythical “national park” he’s heard about, where no living thing is harmed. Unfortunately, before he can get far, he is captured by an environmentalist and injected with a virus that will wipe out all cane toads if he returns to his home.
Determined to find the national park and to keep the virus away from his family, Limpy begins a journey that will hopefully save cane toads everywhere. But is the national park everything he thought it would be?
Toad Heaven will please young readers (mostlly in the fourth- to seventh-grade range) who enjoy learning about animals and other countries. Likes its predecessor, Toad Heaven is set in Australia and contains a number of Australian slang terms that are all defined in the back of the book. Readers will be able to identify with Limpy, especially if they’ve ever felt like they don’t quite fit in with their peers or the rest of their family, and will love to root this unconventional hero on.
While it may be beneficial for readers to be familiar with Toad Rage before they read Toad Heaven, this does work as a stand-alone book. However, once new readers get to know Limpy and his friends, they will probably want to go back and read the first book in the series.
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Toad Heaven