by Charlie Brooks posted in Mom Stories

In my opinion, Arnold Lobell?s Frog and Toad are some of the best children?s stories of all time. They provide a simple, funny, and heartwarming look into the lives of two very close friends ? or, as Lobel?s daughter Adrianne recently speculated in an interview with The New Yorker, something more.
Lobel was a gay man who came out to his family in the 1970s, right in the midst of writing his Frog and Toad stories. Said Adrianne, ?I think Frog and Toad really was the beginning of him coming out.? She said of the characters, ?[They?re] of the same sex, and they love each other.?
I?m not huge on the theory that says the author is the final authority on what a book means ? I think it?s up to the readers to draw what they will out of the text. That said, I thought it was notable that if you read Frog and Toad as gay...very little changes. Through five books, there?s never any indication of the sexual orientation of either Frog or Toad. Nor should there be ? why would anybody, let alone children, want to know about the sexual proclivities of anthropomorphic amphibians" However, one thing is clear through all the stories ? the two characters do love each other very much.
It doesn?t matter what sort of love that is. If you strip away sexuality from most romances, you?d be left with something akin to Frog and Toad?s situation. Viewed from afar, a happy marriage is basically a pair of people who enjoy each other?s company more than anyth...