Saturday, December 10, 2011

When Middle Tennessee residents Jill and Ben Johnson experienced the devastation of the May 2010 floods that destroyed many residents’ homes and lives, they found a unique way to process the experience: by writing and illustrating a children’s book based on the true events of the flood and the story a little toad who happened to have made a residence under the family’s movable basketball goal.

It isn’t the first time Little Toad has seen heavy rain, so he has little trouble falling asleep in the comfortable home he has made for himself under the basketball goal. In fact, the sound of the rain lulls him into a dream in which he finds himself comfortably adrift on a boat, rocking gently back and forth on the waves.

When Little Toad awakes, he discovers that the pleasant dream in his head was kindled by a nightmarish reality. The heavy rain has poured for so long that his home under the basketball goal is flooded. His leaf bed is floating atop the muddy brown water.

Frightened, Little Toad flees his home for the safety of a tall tree. From there, he watches his comfortable basketball goal home float away.

Where will he live now? Where can he go to hide from bigger animals who might eat him?

The Johnsons hope that the story of Little Toad can be used to help child victims of natural disasters cope with the reality of the situation. The Little Toad and the Big Flood (ISBN: 978-0983761075) is now available to booksellers from Two Peas Publishing and to the public from Amazon.com and other retailers.

Filed under: Ben Johnson, Children's Books, Fiction, Jill Johnson, News, Self-publishing