Toot and Puddle
You know, I don't honestly know if Holly Hobbie knows this (although how could she not) but she has created one of the nicest gay couples (only gay couple?) in children's literature. Toot and Puddle are two pigs who live in (I kid you not) Woodcock Pocket. While they do have separate beds, they are also clearly in a very committed, long term relationship. Puddle is a bit of a homebody while Toot likes to get out. Puddle cooks (on some snazzy copper cookwear) and frets and Toot reads, travels and (in one book) mopes. "Do I," he asks, "look too pink?" "You can't be too pink," answers Puddle. (Ah ha!)Like many animals in children's books, they seem to wear clothes or not as the mood takes them (wish we could do that). Sometimes they're fully dressed. Sometimes they're fully dressed in bullfighting regalia. At other times, they're starkers, like when they decide to go skydiving. Sometimes, they feel that a shirt (and no trousers) completes the outfit but that a hat is still de rigeur. Nevertheless, although the illustrations are occasionally a bit saccharine, they are also filled with charming details and little jokes. And I like imagining how Toot and Puddle met, before they settled into their nice New England lifestyle.
posted by Francesca Amendolia at 22:05
10 Comments:
Hmmm . . they probably met in a night club . . . or maybe even in a leather bar? "Hey baby, I bet you I can get that tail of yours to stand straight up."
Yeah, I often think that wearing a shirt and no pants often looks good too!
I always feel a little bad for Puddle when I see that picture of Toot in his matador costume holding hands with a Spanish toy-boy. I mean, sure you get lonely on a round-the-world trip - but Puddle is there at home, waiting patiently and apparently faithfully, and Toot can't keep his trotters off the local talent? Shame on him ;)
T&P do, however, make an extraordinarily cute couple
This is FASCINATING! Is this an American series? I don't suppose I need to explain what "pig sex" means in the gay world....
This is absolutely an American series and most wonderful. And Ed, that's funny that you feel that way too -- I always look at that illustration and try to come up with an alternative explanation for Toot's behavior. I mean, matador camp must be rife with passion, but still, poor Puddle waiting at home.
That is hilarious. I didn't ever consciously notice what you mention here, about how in kids books the creatures wear clothes ocasionally if at all, and seemingly in random ways.
Ha, it's not the animals wearing clothes/not as the mood takes them, it's the artist deciding life's too short to try to draw a pig in a fireman's outfit...or whatever. I speak from my heart.
Surely a policeman's outfit, in this case. Or there's the construction worker, the American Indian or - what was the other one in The Village People? I can never remember all of them...
:D
I was delighted to find the Toot & Puddle stories... Just the thing for the neices and nephews to help explain how their uncle lives with another "uncle". I see that I have three or four more installments to add to my library.
There is one other gay couple in Children's Lit (or perhaps Young Adult Lit?): Carl and Tom, Senior Wizards for New York City, play a regular, positive, supporting part in Diana Wynne Jones' Young Wizards series. It started as a trilogy [So You Want to be a Wizard; Deep Wizardry; and High Wizardry] but has expanded and continues to grow.
Carl and Tom live together and Duane is unappologetic about the matter-of-factness with which she portrays their relationship.
Hello from a nice little country in the "Western Blakans" called Croatia. We don't have gay people, let alone gay pigs. Naked. All the pigs in Croatia are FULLY DRESSED, STRAIGHT HONEST, DECENT LOOKING FOLKS. They also taste nice. Now, ppl, imagine gay pigs on your plate!
Kidding. Greetings from Bosnia.
It was a relief and hysterical to find your blog re. Toot & Puddle. My husband and I agree with you whole-heartedly. Since we have had children, we have all of the T&P books and constantly make comments about how Toot & Puddle's relationship is so... strong, sweet...gay. Our favorite standouts: the "W.P. Pocket Rocket" (Woodcock Pocket Rocket!), daydreaming of lying together naked in a hammock, bustling in the kitchen sans clothes but an apron- and don't get me started on their only copper-pan kitchen.
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