Contents:
THE GAY HISTORY OF AMERI’S CLASSIC CHILDREN’S BOOKS
” It’s about a t who liv wh two gay men; you n tell by the book, then jt published, was evintly meant to help normalize already borgly normal fai like ours by g the tradnal substutn of animals for people orr to illtrate how much fun havg gay dads n be.
) And if you stopped to thk about , “Lucy” seemed to argue that the gay dads, however full of fun, were aquate: When the pa chips were down, they need rcug, too. Among gay-themed children’s stori, they preferred “Frog and Toad. ” No, I know: “Frog and Toad” — a seri of four picture books by Arnold Lobel, origally published between 1970 and 1979 — is not gay-themed.
But ’s not not gay-themed eher. They get to scrap separately but get out of them together, which is not a bad fn of left: Jam Marshall, “Gee and Martha, ” urty of Houghton Miffl Harurt; Arnold Lobel, “Frog and Toad are Friends” © 1970 Arnold Lobel, ed by permissn of HarperColls Publishers; Jam Marshall, “Miss Nelson is Missg!, ” urty of Houghton Miffl HarurtOur boys loved the stori, as did we — but not bee Lobel was gay.
WAS SHEL SILVERSTE GAY
They ntued to make books together for years: a Frog and Toad tale if ever there was, Lobel’s gayns, when I learned of much later, seemed like somethg I should have known all along; lurked everywhere his words and pictur. Which is not to say Frog and Toad uld turn you gay.
They suggted, no ls to as gay parents than to our sons wh their polar personali, how separatens uld bee solidary and oddns acmodatn. However d the books’ gay ntent, was no surprise once d. It’s also that all of their thors were gay.
As if that weren’t enough, he referred to the gay muny, who took him as one of their own whether he liked or not, as “l boys. Sss and Shel Silverste were prumably heterosexual, no matter that Silverste glowered om the photos on his book jackets like a hot Scff by permissn of HarperColls, urty of Children’s Lerature Collectn, UMNBut remas the se that the thors of many of the most succsful and fluential works of children’s lerature the middle years of the last century — works that were formative for baby boomers, Gen-Xers, lennials and beyond — were gay.