KIRKUS REVIEW
Can a parochial toad find his everlasting in a peach bitten by wanderlust? The blue-bellied amphibian is out for a constitutional when he encounters Peach, ripe and red and wanting out of her tree-bound existence. Blue engineers her escape and takes the fruit for an extended tour of his domain. As they noodle along--Peach in a chaise of twigs and mud, Blue gently pushing--Peach exclaims at the colors and textures of this new world, things Blue had never really paid attention to until this moment. Peach can't drink it all in fast enough, and Blue quickly takes to his new responsibility and the education he is getting; indeed, it is clear he has fallen wholesale for Peach. Day folds into night as tenderly as Peach into Blue's arms. Blue's toadness and Peach's delicacy are skillfully captured in Johnson and Fancher's illustrations: closely observed, dreamy paintings set perfectly to the tempo of newcomer Kilborne's story. Peaches and freedom, toads and discovery. Unlikely pairings, but here they work just fine. (Fiction/Picture book. 3-7)
