Caldecott Monday: Make Way for Ducklings
Jun. 27th, 2016 09:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerThe next book on my Caldecott list ought to be 1941’s They Were Strong and Good, but some fiendish person has checked this out of the library - actually I suppose it’s a good thing that the early Caldecott books are still being read, but it’s inconvenient for me - so instead I’m reading the 1942 winner, Robert McCloskey’s Make Way for Ducklings, which conveniently I own.
What an absolutely charming book this is. Of course I'm biased, because we read it when I was a child, but the ducks are delightful. There are eight ducklings, and I love the way that McCloskey has them interact with each other. They don't just all peacefully follow their mother: one duckling will chase after another, say, while yet a third duckling cranes around to look up at a shopkeeper, and yet another searches the ground - perhaps for crumbs?
McCloskey has a real gift for filling his animal drawings with interest and emotion. It reminds me a bit of Pixar.
I always enjoyed the ducklings (I had a bit of a mania for feeding ducks when I was a child), but rereading it as an adult - how delightful is this view of 1940s Boston! The Public Garden, the policeman in his police stand, the rounded old cars and the cozy little corner bookshop.
I looked up Robert McCloskey on Wikipedia to see if he lived in Boston - apparently not - but I did learn from the entry that he wrote two books of humorous short stories set in a town loosely based on his own boyhood home. I am a sucker for this sort of thing, and Wikipedia also tells me that the books were translated into Russian in the seventies and became quite popular in the Soviet Union, so naturally I've put the first one on hold at the library.
What an absolutely charming book this is. Of course I'm biased, because we read it when I was a child, but the ducks are delightful. There are eight ducklings, and I love the way that McCloskey has them interact with each other. They don't just all peacefully follow their mother: one duckling will chase after another, say, while yet a third duckling cranes around to look up at a shopkeeper, and yet another searches the ground - perhaps for crumbs?
McCloskey has a real gift for filling his animal drawings with interest and emotion. It reminds me a bit of Pixar.
I always enjoyed the ducklings (I had a bit of a mania for feeding ducks when I was a child), but rereading it as an adult - how delightful is this view of 1940s Boston! The Public Garden, the policeman in his police stand, the rounded old cars and the cozy little corner bookshop.
I looked up Robert McCloskey on Wikipedia to see if he lived in Boston - apparently not - but I did learn from the entry that he wrote two books of humorous short stories set in a town loosely based on his own boyhood home. I am a sucker for this sort of thing, and Wikipedia also tells me that the books were translated into Russian in the seventies and became quite popular in the Soviet Union, so naturally I've put the first one on hold at the library.
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Date: 2016-06-27 05:59 pm (UTC)I have nothing to add, I just love that book and its title, despite not having read it for a very long time. I have vivid memories of some delightful-looking ducklings crossing a street, though, and everyone being perfectly helpful about it, because why wouldn't you Make Way For Ducklings?
(to this day, my dad likes to say, "Make way for ducklings!" instead of "excuse me" when walking past us in the kitchen. It made us laugh when we were little, and it remains 100% appropriate).
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Date: 2016-06-27 07:45 pm (UTC)And everyone is perfectly helpful about letting the ducklings cross the street. Or at least, they don't seem terribly put out about the fact that policemen are stopping them in order to let the ducklings cross.
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Date: 2016-06-28 01:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-06-28 02:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-07-01 03:49 pm (UTC)I loved Make Way for Ducklings as a kid, too. Talk about an enduring classic!
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Date: 2016-07-02 12:59 am (UTC)