Russell E. Erickson is the author of seven Warton and Morton books, originally published from 1974-1988. He was a lithographer whose other interests include photography, printing, carpentry, fishing, and puttering around in his vegetable patch and woodland garden. He lived in Bristol, Connecticut until his death in 2024. Lawrence Di Fiori is the distinguished illustrator of all seven of the Warton and Morton books, more than 70 other books and countless magazine pieces.  A Fine Arts graduate of the Philadelphia College of Art, his extensive works include painting, sculpture, comics, fine ink drawings, and exhibits in numerous museums. As a mentor and a scholar, he taught in art school and followed his curiosity toward beauty and aesthetics throughout his life. He died in 2022.

"Brother Morton's wistful musing about floating high like the hawks is all it takes to set Warton Toad busy constructing a sort of air balloon from snakeskin tubes with a washbucket carriage. And after the inevitable accident sets them adrift, the two crash-land far from home and end up prisoners of a band of slovenly, squabbling weasels who want Warton to help them build a house. As the alternative is toad stew for the weasels, Warton tries, but he can't get his contentious captors to work together. And though he has a bit more success teaching them to play games together, it's a villain ex machina--in the form of a hawk who swoops down and matches up Freda Weasel--that allows Warton to play the hero and wins the two toads a reluctant escort home. Falling somewhere between the cozy attractions of A Toad for Tuesday and the sticky spirit of Warton's Christmas Eve Adventure, this relies on the disagreeable behavior of the nasty weasels to give the story a sort of mild shiver value." -Kirkus Reviews