#30 Jesse Green: The Gay History of Your Favorite Children’s Books

05/08/19 • 36 min

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Back in 1970, author and illustrator Arnold Lobel released the first in a series of award-winning children’s books chronicling the adventures of two good friends: Frog and Toad. Though the pair’s sexuality was never explicitly disclosed in the books, was it possible that Lobel created the characters to teach children about ideas of acceptance, tolerance and compassion?

Author, father, and New York Times co-chief theater critic Jesse Green recently examined works by Lobel, Margaret Wise Brown, Maurice Sendak and other prominent children’s book authors and illustrators of the past 50-plus years and discovered that a host of writers of a more conservative era created the best works of their lives - and some of the most influential children’s literature of all time - while largely hiding their sexuality from the public.

In this episode of Paternal, Green discusses the effect those books had on children both gay and straight, why it’s such a triumph that these books have persisted through the years, and what that says about the connection between creativity and repression. He also offers a candid reflection on his own life as a father and the challenges gay men faced in raising children decades ago in New York City, not long after the panic and confusion of the AIDS crisis and when prejudiced polices and strict laws forbade gay men from adopting kids of their own.

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#29 Craig Scott: Twenty Years After Columbine

Craig Scott was a sophomore at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999, when two students descended on the school and unleashed what was, at the time, the deadliest high school shooting in American history. And though Scott survived by hiding under a desk in the library, the shooters killed 12 students and a teacher that day, including Scott's friends, classmates, and older sister Rachel. Scott is now a speaker with and a co-founder of the Denver-based non-profit organization Value Up, dedicated to improving the social climate in high schools and instilling self-worth and value in kids who need it most. Scott has told his story of survival to thousands of teenagers and helped them deal with cross-generational problems of social pressures and anxiety, but also with issues exclusive to a new generation of teens, including the pitfalls of social media and sexting, as well as active shooter drills that are commonplace in today’s schools.

On the 20th anniversary of the Columbine shooting, Scott discusses his thoughts on the shooters who caused so much emotional and physical damage two decades ago, how he connects with teenagers today, if the emotional trauma changed how he communicates with his family, and if he should start his own someday soon.

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#31 Keith Gaston: Tales of Teaching Fatherhood

Keith Gaston is a father, social worker and, just like his dad, a man born and raised in Hartford, Connecticut. But the city has changed in the decades since Gaston grew up there, with a climbing unemployment rate, a declining city population and issues with gun violence and drugs that are taking a toll on some of the city’s young men. That’s where Gaston has stepped in, focused on teaching those same men the skills of being a father.

On this episode of Paternal, Gaston reflects on an ambitious five-year study that gathered young fathers from right off the streets of Hartford. These were young men who perhaps became an accidental father years ago and have struggled to build a relationship with their young family, or even avoided the responsibility all together, and it became Gaston’s task to help teach them about the impact an engaged dad can have not just on his own family, but also on the community.

Raised in the 1960s and 1970s in a family with seven kids, Gaston says his father took every step to stress the importance of education, family and safety, and that allowed Gaston to become an ideal mentor for men looking for help.