How the Heck to Pronounce “Arnold Lobel”
I’m turning into a single serve site today¹ to do a public duty.
Arnold Lobel (you know, the children’s literature legend behind Frog and Toad and other classics) has one of those names often pronounced different ways. Sometimes I would hear “LO-BULL” other times “LO-BELL”. I had no idea what to believe². But a little while back, I came across an old Scholastic Records edition of Frog and Toad Are Friends, which Lobel himself narrates. His first line set me forever straight on the matter.
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
(Click the vine to hear the sound)
¹You know the sites I’m talking about – the sites that tell you just one thing, like if it’s time for a nap or if it’s St. Patrick’s Day.
²I should have gone to the Author Pronunciation Guide at TeachingBooks.net.
Filed under: Articles
About Travis Jonker
Travis Jonker is an elementary school librarian in Michigan. He writes reviews (and the occasional article or two) for School Library Journal and is a member of the 2014 Caldecott committee. You can email Travis at scopenotes@gmail.com, or follow him on Twitter: @100scopenotes.
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
SLJ Blog Network
A Podcast Experiment: SPEED ROUND w/ Marla Frazee, Dan Santat, Doug Salati, and Amina Luqman-Dawson.
Maintain the Domain! A PSA for Authors/Publishers
Extincts: Flight of the Mammoth | This Week’s Comics
Back in the (Literary) Saddle, a guest post by Jessica Burkhart
The Classroom Bookshelf is Moving
ADVERTISEMENT
I’ve been mispronouncing this my whole life, apparently. I always put the emphasis on the second syllable (lo-BELL), but it’s the first (LO-bell). The more you know!
Perfect timing! We are reading his Fables book in my summer school class and discussing the author Monday! Thank you!
I read this post smugly thinking, I already know how to pronounce this name because I’ve heard everyone say his name a million times.
I (and everyone I learned from) was saying it wrong. It’s LO-bell, not Luh-BELL.
For anyone who might not know, my friend Mike Jung’s name is pronounced JUNG, not YOUNG.
And mine, which people rarely get wrong, is BAR-shaw.