I have a lot of affection for a series of children’s books called The Frog and the Toad books by Arnold Lobel. There are four books about this comic amphibian duo, and each book contains five short and simply-written stories, which are intended for beginner readers but are also perfect for parents to read aloud at bedtime.

They are fables really, about endearing human weaknesses such as greed, self-consciousness, laziness and addiction to routine. I love clever fables, and I love these better than Aesop or Lafontaine because they are subtler and more whimsical — and they are much funnier.

Frog and Toad are friends, Frog being the straight guy and Toad the one who embodies most of the failings and whose favourite expression is “Blah!” In one of my favourite stories, The List, Toad makes a List of Things to Do: Get up, Go for walk with Frog, etc. He enjoys ticking the items off his list but then, when it blows away he refuses to do anything. (He can’t run after the list because that wasn’t one of the Things to Do.) In A Swim, Toad is so embarrassed that everyone will laugh at him in his bathing suit that he stays underwater till a large crowd gathers: of course they do all laugh, and so then poor old Toad goes home in a huff.

In A Lost Button Toad has a tantrum when he keeps finding the wrong buttons: “He jumped up and down and screamed, ‘The whole world is covered with buttons, and not one of them is mine!’,” and then feels contrite when he finds his own button on the floor of his house.

As well as being very funny and silly, all of the stories have a quality of joyful optimism, celebrating things like the spring and friendship in a fresh and unsentimental way. I hugely admire and envy Arnold Lobel’s generous inventiveness; he is my hero.

Charlie Cook’s Favourite Book (Macmillan Children’s) by Julia Donaldson, illustrated by Axel Scheffler, is out now

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