Arnold Lobel papers

Arnold Lobel was an American author and illustrator who worked on nearly 100 children's books. He was born on May 22, 1933, in Los Angeles, California, and raised in Schenectady, New York. In 1955, Lobel graduated with a BFA from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. After graduation, he supported himself as an illustrator for advertising agencies and trade magazines. Lobel began his career in children's literature illustrating Harper & Row's early reader books. His first book as an author and illustrator was A Zoo for Mister Muster (1962).

Among his most recognized works is a series of four books about a frog and a toad: Frog and Toad Are Friends (1970); Frog and Toad Together (1972); Frog and Toad all Year (1976); and Days with Frog and Toad (1979). Frog and Toad are Friends was chosen as a 1971 Caldecott Honor Book by the American Library Association, and Frog and Toad Together was recognized as a Newbery Honor Book in 1973. He was awarded the Caldecott Medal in 1981 for Fables. Other works by Lobel include The Man Who Took the Indoors Out (1974), Mouse Soup (1977), Ming Lo Moves the Mountain (1982), On the Day Peter Stuyvesant Sailed Into Town (1971), Prince Bertram the Bad (1963), and The Turnaround Wind (1987). Lobel also illustrated children's books for authors such as Laura Geringer, Valerie Scho Carey, Cheli Durán, Burr Tillstrom, Harriet Ziefert, Doris Orgel, Maxine Kumin, Jean Van Leeuwen, Peggy Parish, and Edward Lear. Other works as illustrator include Gregory Griggs and Other Nursery Rhyme People (1978), Random House Book of Mother Goose (1986), and Random House Book of Poetry for Children (1983).

In 1955, Lobel married children's author and illustrator Anita Kempler. They collaborated on books such as How the Rooster Saved the Day (1977), A Treeful of Pigs (1979), and On Market Street (1981). The couple had two children, Adrianne and Adam. In 1974, Lobel came out to his family as gay. He died of cardiac arrest in New York in 1987.