Frog and Toad Again
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By Debra Lau Whelan -- School Library Journal, 09/23/2009
The late award-winning author and illustrator Arnold Lobel never expected that the private sketches he gave as gifts to friends would ever be published. But after an estate sale last year uncovered several unpublished works, his daughter Adrianne Lobel placed a few calls—and a new book was quickly under way. The result is The Frogs and Toads All Sang (HarperCollins, 2009), a collection of rhyming stories accompanied by Lobel's pencil sketches, which Adrianne brought to life with watercolors—more than 20 years after his death.
What’s been the reaction to your book?
I think it is always great when you are a fan of someone's work to suddenly be treated to newly discovered material. It is like a kiss from the beyond. This book is particularly interesting as it is like a prequel—it helps to understand where Frog and Toad came from.
Arnold Lobel is still loved more than 20 years after his death. What is it about your father’s work that makes it timeless?
I think my father was basically a fairly neurotic person who understood profoundly that it was important to know how to comfort yourself and others in this scary world. Children respond to the fact that most of my father’s characters are nervous, if not frightened, but find ways of dealing with those feelings.
What was your reaction when you got a call saying that several never-published works of your dad’s had been found?
I was dubious about the publishability of something that had been meant for friends' eyes only and that was from so long ago. I did not remember the books and was surprised and delighted to see them.
Was it a no-brainer for HarperCollins to make them into a picture book?
Yes, pretty much a no-brainer for everyone concerned. I think it helped that I was ready and available to do the color on the illustrations, adding an element of sentiment to the project.
Are these private sketches like the work he was publishing at the time?
They are actually more like the mature work than they are like the work that he was publishing at the time, which was much tighter and more cartoony. Because these drawings were not meant for publication, I think he approached them with a pleasure that made them more spontaneous, less labored over, and finally, more contemporary. They hold up very well because they are loose and lively.
You’re such a successful set designer, so were you surprised at how scary it was to add watercolor to your dad’s images?
I wasn't really THAT terrified. I have been drawing and painting since I was one and a half and have a similar “hand” to my father, as he is the one I watched for so long. Our signatures are almost exactly alike. I had studied and translated his watercolors to paint the elevations that were blown up to become the drops for the musical A Year with Frog and Toad, so I had been through this exercise fairly recently. Still—it helped that Harper provided 20 or so copies of each illustration printed on good watercolor paper, as I felt like I had a lot of chances to get it right!
What does your daughter think about The Frogs and Toads All Sang?
My daughter is seven and a half going on 14. She is quite tragically sad whenever Arnold is brought up, as she feels cheated that she never met him, so she has a complicated relationship with his work. Right now she is more into Percy Jackson.
What was it like growing up as Arnold Lobel’s daughter?
In retrospect of course, there is this awareness that something genius was going on under our very noses. At the time, all I knew was that he could be very funny, very strict, very warm, very chilly—particularly when he wanted to work and we were disturbing him—and that I adored him.
Did he read to you and your brother when you were little?
Yes, always, his work and the works of others. I remember his reading A Bargain for Francis and all of us roaring. He was very good at reading aloud. He recorded his own work and that of other authors.
Tell us about Odd Owls and Stout Pigs, which is scheduled to be released in October 2009.
It is good. There is more in it than in the Frogs book. I used a pastel technique on it, which is different than the watercolor I used on Frogs, as I wanted both the owls and the pigs to feel softer and fuzzier. Owls and Pigs show a different angle respectively to my father's personality. Pigs reflect his love of excess and owls are the craziest by far. Forget neurotic—owls illustrate the psychotic side of my father's mind! I think I like the owls best of all.
What are you working on now?
I have been working on a musical version of Little House on the Prairie for a number of years now. It played very successfully at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis last fall and this month it's playing at the Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey before going on a 40-week commercial American tour.
