"Uncle Bart," said Limpy, "Why do humans hate us?"

Uncle Bart looked down at Limpy, and smiled fondly.

"Stack me, Limpy," he chuckled, "you are an idiot."

Limpy, a slighty squashed cane toad, is struggling to get to grips with the idea that humans really hate him and his kind, and refuses to bow down to the popular cane toad "that's life" philosophy that has led to the severe flattening of far too many of his uncles. So, he decides to take things into his own hands and embarks on a journey across Australia in the hope that he can change the minds of the whole human race.

Morris Gleitzman's Toad Rage is a superbly wry, dry and outrageously funny take on the coming-of-age journey. As Limpy does battle with the dusty outback tracks and the danger-ridden streets of the Big City the reader is swept along with his quest for absolute understanding, living and breathing every moment of the always insightful and occasionally terrifying journey into the unknown.

Limpy, with his squished limbs and fine collection of very flat uncles, is a sweet and determined youngster whose inquisitive nature and total belief is typically indicative of a Gleitzman hero. Indeed, Gleitzman pulls off this funny, sensitive and totally absorbing story with the heart-warming (and occasionally heart-rending) aplomb that will be familiar to any reader who has read Two Weeks with The Queenor his stunning Rowena Batts trilogy. And as usual, he doesn't offer any nice, neat answers but instead allows his characters, and the reader, to come to their own conclusions about whether or not the battle is worth the effort.

Gleitzman is simply a superb author who deserves to be read and enjoyed, and with Toad Rage he pulls off another quirky winner that children will love, and adults will surely be tempted by.--Age 9 and over.