In stories, mice are to rats as frogs are to toads. Unlike hares and rabbits, toads and frogs are actually the same category of animal, but one has garnered a better reputation. I’ve heard ‘toad’ used as an insult, but I’ve only ever heard ‘froggy’ to describe the shape of someone’s mouth. Neither is especially complimentary, but frogs seem cuter.
The Real Difference Between Frogs And Toads
Wheras the categories of ‘mice’ and ‘rats’ encompass many different small mammals who may or may not be closely related to each other, toads are a subcategory of frog.
Generally speaking, whether we call an amphibian a frog or a toad will depend on a few visible markers:
MORE FROGGY | MORE TOADLY | |
SKIN | moist and slimy | dry and bumpy |
BODY | long and lean | short and squat |
EGGS | in a mass | in a chain |
HABITAT | wetter | drier |
MOVEMENT | leapy | crawly |
So how is this distinction useful for storytellers making use of anthropomorphised amphibians?



I’m thinking slime. I think flies, quick movements combined with general sloth. I think of The Frog Princess, literally and metaphorically ‘slimy’, imposing himself on a young woman knowing full well she doesn’t want him anywhere near her.



New German fairytale treasure 7. Special issue of the WEEK Storybook Publisher- August Scherl G.m.b.H. (Berlin Germany; 1905) William the Curious by Charles Santore

Edward Frederick Brewtnall – The Princess and the Frog Prince Marianne Stokes – The Frog Prince

The Quack Frog

Toads As Mark Of Healthy Boyhood
Especially in nineteenth and twentieth century children’s books, boys and frogs are linked. The painting by Dirk Sargeant below is an excellent visual depiction of what I’m talking about:

The boy takes a natural and mischievous delight in these disgusting creatures, usually while a disapproving girl or woman looks on. In Charlotte’s Web, E. B. White wrote a brother (Avery) who is the stereotypically perfect representation of rural boyhood — part of that requires a fascination with frogs.
Though the famous nursery rhyme below doesn’t mention frogs and toads exactly, they fit into the same category as snails:
What are little boys made of?
What are little boys made of?
Snips and snails
And puppy-dogs’ tails
That’s what little boys are made ofWhat are little girls made of?
What are little girls made of?
Sugar and spice
And everything nice [or “all things nice”]
That’s what little girls are made of
Toads are basically gross-out material, related to Bakhtin’s ideas about bodily discomfort.


The Posh Dandy Toad
I believe the underlying idea in this archetype is that the ugly middle-aged man tries to improve himself by dressing in a way his gentlemanly salary allows. The juxtaposition is the joke, and another take on ‘making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear’ or ‘lipstick on a pig’. The best-known example of this kind of toad is probably Toad from The Wind In The Willows, published 1908. The illustration below is also from around that time.
A well dressed toad. Drawing by G. Hope Tait, c1900 by Jim Smith from Frog Band Fanfare published in 1977 David Hall’s conceptual art for Disney’s Alice in Wonderland, 1939 A Frog he would a Wooing Go, by American illustrator Henry Louis Stephens 1824 -1882 Harrison Cady (1877-1970, American) rabbit frog
Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Jeremy Fisher was published in 1893, and it may have been Potter who ushered in the age of the well-dressed toad in children’s stories. Her publishers weren’t confident a slimy amphibian could be empathetic, so Potter was required to compensate for Jeremy’s ugliness by painting unusually beautiful backgrounds. It was Potter’s book which proved even a toady type thing can be sympathetic.

WHAT DID AESOP HAVE TO SAY ABOUT FROGS AND TOADS?

Cute Frogs
Make any slimy thing cuter by giving them clothes. Extend cuteness further by depicting them in mid-action, putting on those clothes, behaving like humans. The cutest thing you can do with a frog is to make it behave like a child human.
Fritz Baumgarten (1883 – 1966) German illustrator Racey Helps (1913-1970) Frog by a Dandelion with Flies (1877–1938) by Jan van Oort The Frog In The Well written by Alvin Tresselt Illustrated by Roger Duvoisin 1958 The story of the little turtle and the gold finches by Alex Wedding, illustrated by Eberhard Binder, 1963 frogs The Wasp Sting by Heinrich Schlitt




Frog and Toad fishing



I’m A Frog by Mo Willems “Les enfants et les bêtes” (1936) livre de lecture illustré par Armand Rapeno The Duck Tale by Virginia Bennett. Illustrated by E. Stewart. London – Ernest Nister New York – E. P. Dutton & Co. .c.1908.
The Adventures of Mr Toad Concept art by John Hench






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Header illustration: Frederick Stuart Church (1842–1924) ~ Frogs and Mosquitos summer concert ~ Harpers