From the crisp precision of his Rembrandt-like pen-and-ink drawings for The Microscope (1984) to the smoky, smudgy, foggily atmospheric scene of London Bridge in Whiskers & Rhymes (1985), Lobel deftly demonstrated his wide-ranging repertory of styles and techniques.

Lobel varied his media, method, and mood with each new book. His beautifully crafted books received numerous awards, including a Caldecott Medal, two Caldecott Honors, and a Newbery Honor.

Lobel also illustrated stories by other authors in his twenty-six year career, Lobel illustrated nearly one hundred titles and wrote the stories of many of them as well. His strong affection for these amphibians resulted in the development of his most memorable characters, Frog and Toad.įrog and Toad was just the beginning of a long list of early readers Lobel wrote and illustrated including Mouse Tales (1972), Mouse Soup (1977), and Uncle Elephant (1981). Guided by the belief that the secret to creating great books for children is in writing for oneself about oneself, Lobel drew on fond memories of summers spent in Vermont where his family adopted myriad frogs and toads as pets. Seuss and designed to motivate emerging readers), that he achieved real success.

It was in 1970, when an editor convinced Lobel to create an early reader (a new genre of books ushered in by Dr. They settled in Brooklyn across from the Prospect Park Zoo, where they went often with their children, inspiring one of his earliest books, A Zoo for Mister Muster (1962). He married Anita Kempler, another art student at Pratt, that same year. Lobel graduated from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York in 1955 with a degree in fine arts. For Lobel, picture books were “capable of suggesting everything that is good about feeling well and having positive thoughts about being alive.” His passion for books spawned a talent for storytelling and drawing, and he soon won the respect of his classmates by enthralling them with the stories he invented. Throughout his self-described unhappy childhood, he sought refuge in his local library. Raised by his German-Jewish grandparents in Schenectady, New York, Arnold Lobel was an awkward and sensitive child, often bullied at school.

Frog and toad are friends illustrations