We Made Shirts | An Interview with Arnold Lobel
talking Frog and Toad over toast at a Holiday Inn
Deep dives on great picture books are here.
We recommend picture books we like a lot here.
The Looking at Picture Books Shop is here.
First of all, and perhaps most importantly, we sell t-shirts now. They were silkscreened by our friends at Black Stamp Studios in Half Moon Bay, California on Comfort Colors blanks, which fit real nice and are…comfort…able.
Ok, so. We’re working on a Deep Dive into one of our favorite Frog and Toad stories, which has us talking about Arnold Lobel, who made the Frog and Toad books.
Many years ago, we found a scan of this old interview with him. Lobel didn’t give a lot of interviews, and you can see by reading this one that he’s not a showy conversationalist. He’s proud of his work, but he saw himself very much as a working author/illustrator, which is especially notable given the huge popularity and acclaim his work received while he was alive. Lobel is pretty matter-of-fact about the whole thing.
The interview takes place after he’s done with the Frog and Toad books and onto other projects, but of course the series comes up right away.
Lobel also touches on his approach to writing animals generally, the lack of quality children’s book criticism, Maurice Sendak maybe over-intellectualizing in his interviews, and Mother Goose, among other things. The Mother Goose part made us laugh.
A few other things to note: It says Lobel’s cat was named Orson, which… is there any other Orson to name a cat after? It’s gotta be, right? Incredible. The staff here at Looking At Picture Books are very big Orson Welles fans — his later work has helped us through some tough spots.
Also, it says the interview took place over coffee and toast AND English muffins in a Holiday Inn restaurant, which excited Jon very much in particular. Jon loves a Holiday Inn, and toast. (Mac loves toast, at least.)
(Jon would like to further point out that a Holiday Inn back when this interview would’ve taken place was like nothing we know today. Picture English muffins and coffee with Arnold Lobel in a room like this and it’s really something.)
Ok, without further ado, a short-ish interview with Arnold Lobel (apologies for the scan quality — it’s the only format we could find it in):
What a fantastic interview of Lobel!
It makes me even more excited for Emmy Kastner's forthcoming picture book about Lobel: https://www.emmykmakes.com/outside-in-and-the-inside-out.
Got to the "very difficult to have children and create at the same time..." part and realized I'd forgotten to make my kid's camp lunch (thankfully, before we left the house).
Anyhow! I had not read this interview, and I did really enjoy it! It was not as superficial as many; I do feel like I got a better sense of the person here.
And you were spot on for Orson. From a 1979 interview in the NYT, “We named him Orson,” he says, “because we thought he would grow into an Orson Welles. Instead he grew into an Orson Bean..."