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‘Frog And Toad’ Were Gay? Arnold Lobel’s Daughter Says Author Celebrated Same-Sex Love In Classic Children’s Book Series 4 Years Before Coming Out

By Victoria Miller
Published on: 07:57 PST, Jun 1, 2016

Arnold Lobel’s Frog and Toad book series, one of the most beloved children’s book series of the 1970s, followed the close friendship of two conveniently named amphibians. Four years after the first book, Frog and Toad Are Friends, was published, Lobel came out to his wife and two children as gay, and now his daughter says she believes the classic books were her father’s first step toward coming out.

In an interview with the New Yorker, Arnold daughter, Adrianne Lobel, says the four Frog and Toad books were the only children’s stories that her father wrote that involved a relationship. And what a relationship it was.

“[Frog and Toad] are of the same sex, and they love each other,” Adrianne Lobel said. “It was quite ahead of its time in that respect.”

Arnold Lobel was married to artist Anita Kempler, but he ultimately came out to his family in 1974. And while the Newbery-honored author and illustrator never publicly commented on the connection between his books and his sexuality, his daughter thinks it was all related.

“I think ‘Frog and Toad’ really was the beginning of him coming out,” Adrianne said.

Indeed, the Frog and Toad books can be considered a primer for same-sex relationships, whether straight or gay. The two pals spent time together doing simple things with humor and compassion, and one story ends with the besties sitting alone on an island with their arms around one another, just being together.

Arnold Lobel suffered from AIDs, but he died in 1987 from a heart attack.

“He was only fifty-four,” Adrianne Lobel said. “Think of all the stories we missed.”

Arnold Lobel’s New York Times obituary described him as a sickly child who was often bullied. While Arnold wrote and illustrated more than 100 books in his short lifetime, he once said the “writing” part was the most difficult for him.

“Writing is very painful to me,” Lobel said in 1979. “I have to force myself not to think in visual terms, because I know if I start to think of pictures, I’ll cop out on the text.”

In an interview with the Lion and the Unicorn, Arnold Lobel said his stories came from a lifetime of experiences — not all of them good.

“How does an adult author come upon an idea for a story? It’s lifetime experience,” Arnold said. “It’s just that I transmogrify everything to children because that’s my particular medium. You know, if an adult has an unhappy love affair, he writes about it. He exorcises it out of himself, perhaps, by writing a novel about it. Well, if I have an unhappy love affair, I have to somehow use all that pain and suffering but turn it into a work for children.”

Arnold Lobel died before publicly coming out, so fans of the Frog and Toad series may now find special poignancy in his words.

It has been nearly 40 years since the last Frog and Toad book was published, but the series lives on. Not only are the books still in print today — an amazing feat, no matter how you slice it — the characters have been featured in a 1980 stop-motion animated TV show and a 2003 Broadway musical, A Year with Frog and Toad. In addition, a film adaption of the book series has been in the works for several years.

Take a look at the video to hear a passage from Arnold Lobel’s Frog and Toad Together book.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkF2OKcdxww

[Photo by Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Lucille Lortel Awards]

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