Toby
The Spadefoot of Meadowbrook Pond
I designed and illustrated this children’s book for a local nonprofit, Preserve Wild Poway. Although Toby himself is fictional, the Western Spadefoot Toad population of Meadowbrook pond in Poway, California is real, and is in real trouble from planned developments. Preserve Wild Poway financed the printing of a small batch of these in hardcover, with all proceeds going towards helping threatened and vulnerable plants and animals.
Despite the solemn inspiration and purpose of this book, I had a lot of fun drawing lots of toads with extremely wide smiles, and experimenting with simplified versions of the chaparral plants and animals of my native Poway.
Photographs on this page are copyright 2024 by Jeff and Deb Schmidt
Most of the information about spadefoots in this book comes from a report compiled by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2023, “Species Status Assessment Report for the Western Spadefoot (Spea hammondii)”, Version 1.1. May 2023. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Sacramento Fish and Wildlife Office, Sacramento, California.