ARNOLD LOBEL was an American author of children's books who died on this date (b: 1933); He is best known for his Frog and Toad series and Mouse Soup. He wrote and illustrated these picture books as well as Fables, a 1981 Caldecott Medal winner for best-illustrated U.S. picture book. Lobel also illustrated books by other writers, including Sam the Minuteman by Nathaniel Benchley published in 1969.
Lobel was born in Los Angeles, California, but was raised in Schenectady, New York, the hometown of his parents. Lobel's childhood was not a happy one, as he was frequently bullied, but he did love reading picture books at his local library. He attended the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. In 1955, after he graduated, he married Anita Kempler, also a children's writer and illustrator whom he'd met while in art school. The two worked in the same studio and collaborated on several books together. They had two children: daughter Adrianne and son Adam Lobel, and three grandchildren.
Following college, Lobel was unable to support himself as a children's book author or illustrator and so he worked in advertising and trade magazines, which he did not like.
But he loved his writing and illustration work, saying "I cannot think of any work that could be more agreeable and fun than making books for children" and described his job as a daydreamer. He began drawing during a period of extended illness as a second grader. On the October 25, 1950 episode of "Kukla, Fran and Ollie", Oliver J. Dragon presented "poems by Thomas Smith and drawings by Arnold Lobel from Schenectady."
His professional career began during the 1960s, writing and illustrating "conventional" easy readers and fables. His style could be described as minimalist and frequently had animals as the subject matter. Lobel used animals as characters because he felt it helped with the suspension of disbelief.
His second book, A Holiday for Mister Muster, and perhaps others were inspired by the Prospect Park Zoo in Brooklyn, which the Lobels lived across the street from. Cartoons his children watched were also an inspiration, as were popular television shows like Bewitched and The Carol Burnett Show.
Lobel's writing and illustrations went through several phases in his career. His early works had a broad humor often in verse, a style that he would return to at other points in his career. In 1977 interview for The Lion and the Unicorn, Lobel explained that he wrote these books by imagining what children would want to read. However, as he continued to write, he realized the books he was writing didn't have the "weight" to them he wished and that he was going to have to use tap into himself in order to create better writing.
Following that epiphany, he began taking inspiration from his own experiences and emotions, and acknowledged that he was writing "... adult stories, slightly disguised as children's stories." In the 1970s Lobel's illustrations shifted from primary colors to a broader spectrum of pastel colors. The solitary individual, whether played seriously or for comic relief, was common in Lobel's work, as were two people who were complementary.
Lobel's illustrations served to visualize the rhythm and emotions of the text in a way that could be "cinematic." His chosen vocabulary, subject matter, and writing style helped to re-conceive what an easy reader book could be. Lobel identified the exploration of his own feelings as a reason that he improved as a writer.
In his 1977 The Lion and the Unicorn interview, Lobel discussed the ways he would work through his emotions while still maintaining his children's audience. This was part of Lobel's belief that adult and children emotions were more similar than different. His work was described as "sunny, warm, even cosy." Despite this, the process of writing was "painful" for Lobel, who was far more inclined to want to illustrate than write and only started writing because of the increased royalties. As late as 1983, Lobel felt he was beginning to trust his instincts as a writer. In fact, he never felt comfortable enough with his technical writing skill to consider writing a novel for adults, or a longer book for children.
Lobel illustrated close to 100 books during his career which were translated into dozens of languages. Despite the awards he won, Lobel wasn't always recognized during his lifetime.
In 1974, he told his family that he was gay. In the early 1980s, he and Anita separated, and he moved to Greenwich Village. He died of cardiac arrest at Doctors Hospital in New York, after suffering from AIDS for some time.
The musical A Year with Frog and Toad (workshopped 2000, premiered 2002), by Adrianne Lobel and others, played on Broadway in 2003 and has toured nationally since.
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