 |
 |
|
Robert
McCloskey A native Midwesterner renowned for his portrayals of New England, Robert McCloskey died on June 30, 2003, in Deer Isle, Maine, at the age of eighty-eight. He was a two-time Caldecott Medalist — Make Wake for Ducklings won in 1942 and Time of Wonder in 1958 — and the creator of One Morning in Maine and Blueberries for Sal. His books for older children include Homer Price and its sequel, Centerburg Tales. We remember him with several
offerings from the Horn Book archives: Make Way for Ducklings reviewed in the September 1941 Horn Book Magazine ROBERT MCCLOSKEY, Author-Illustrator The Boston Public Garden has never appeared in more attractive guise than in this engaging book. The story of the family of ducks, raised on the Charles River and brought back to the pond in the Garden, through the traffic of city streeets by its anxious mother is founded on fact as many Bostonians can testify. Robert McCloskey’s unusual and stunning pictures will long be a delight for their fun as well as their spirit of peace. From the November 1943 Horn Book Magazine Homer Price Comment by Eric Gugler and James Daugherty
That upturned nose and the freckles, the impudent, quizzical, honest little look remind you of so many things. How much more than anything else in the world, even to be rich or powerful, even to be President, even to be anything ever so much more than anything else in the world, they wanted to be able to whistle very, very loud with two fingers stuffed in their mouths. How you envied the boy with the perfect arrangement of teeth that made it possible for him to spit a thin jet of water in a high arched stream — the duffer could make it land where he said he would. No ambitions in later life will ever equal these, and you feel that Homer Price could do them all. Do you remember the half-friendly “chases” from Mr. Mooney, the policeman, and his dog, Dilly? Mr. Mooney would have loved Homer. The older boys on the various teams were gods, and their pranks beyond fancy, but they certainly would have taken Homer with them to the football game one hundred miles away, hidden between two seats, back to back, covering him with their overcoats, so that the conductor would never see him — just because he was Homer! As for Bob McCloskey — he is, and was, another better Homer Price than Homer Price himself. His book has given me a twofold pleasure — deep enjoyment of his story and pictures and deep enjoyment of the accompanying reminiscences of other boys I knew very well indeed, — and one I knew the best of all. — Eric Gugler
What I want to speak about especially is the pictures. This guy McCloskey can draw and I don’t mean just good academy. The way these boys fit into their pants, wear their shirts, and the way the folds of their clothes pull with every movement is all there to intensify vivid humor and real character This humorous reality pervades even the objects in each scene so that you get the full delicious flavor out of every detail of Homer’s room and the unforgettable barber shop The double-page drawing of the historical pageant is a classic of small-town celebration And so one goes over these drawings again and again with renewed delight in all their details. The doughnut counter, the ice cream parlor, and above all the impossible machines and gadgets that operate so convincingly, must not only be copyrighted but patented! The satire is warm and genial and tolerant so that you feel these pictures are the autobiography of a generous mind as well as a shrewd and witty recording of familiar scenes. It is the true comedy of democracy in the great American tradition of A. B. Frost, of Kemble, and of Peter Newell, all the more so that McCloskey is entirely unaware of it. The laughter is in the drawing itself; you get the fun of the thing visually and even especially without the words. It is America laughing at itself with a broad and genial humanity, without bitterness or sourness or sophistication. The whole thing culminates magnificently in the final story when “the wheels of Progress” come to Centerburg, and here McCloskey puts on a full philharmonic of fun and satire in the dilemma and the triumph of modern housing. One closes the book with the comforting feeling, however, that although Centerburg can and does take the machine age in its stride, the salt and character, the humanities and individualism of Our Town remain triumphant and that democracy will keep her rendezvous with destiny, musical mousetraps, and all. — James Daugherty From the August 1958 Horn Book Magazine Bob McCloskey, Inventor
Bob McCloskey’s talent for devising mechanical contraptions is topped only by his ability to turn out books that carry off the Caldecott Medal. I think there’s a great book in a collection of Robert McCloskey Inventions. This flair of Bob’s for mechanical contraptions was very hard on his mother when, as a youngster, he came up with a machine for whipping cream. Being a generous boy, he didn’t spare the juice, so when this whirling monster came in contact with the cream, it splattered a milky-way pattern around all four kitchen walls. Time of Wonder is a poetic, pictorial record of his island home in Maine. But what the pictures in the book don’t show is the staggering amount of equipment that it takes to turn a house on an island into a comfortable home. Bob is caretaker and up-keeper of electric generators, water pumps, winches, boat engines, etc., but the amazing thing is that he still has enough humor left to indulge in such refinements as hi-fi sets (which require special generators) and electrically run roasting spits. In 1947 I was able to benefit from Bob’s mechanical wizardry. I had just bought a car — a 1927 Pontiac — which had a good engine, I was told, and lots of dignity, which I could see. My wife and I borrowed the McCloskeys’ car and went to pick it up. On the way back I drove the McCloskeys’ car while my wife brought along the antique (as head of the family I can’t afford to take chances). We proudly showed it off to the McCloskeys but when it was time to leave, it wouldn’t start. I raised the hood and looked wise; Bob turned the crank a few times and listened. He removed a few bolts and a section of the fly-wheel housing came out. Then he reached in and pulled out the re mains of a mouse nest. All the car needed (for him who could tell) was a little old-fashioned spring cleaning. The motor started and we were on our way. Editorial from the July/August 1991 Horn Book Magazine A Love Letter to Robert McCloskey
For fifty years, we have been able to put into children’s hands an unspoiled book. The first time I experienced this joy was about thirty years ago; I was a child myself, sharing the book with my small sister. I don’t know how she felt that day, but I remember how I felt, and it is a joy that only increases any time and every time I can pass on that book to an uninitiated child. Because of Robert McCloskey’s insistence on the integrity of the book, the experience of sharing his masterpiece — unsullied by Saturday morning cartoon characters, cheap imitations, or further duckling sequels — has remained the same pristine and beautiful experience for fifty years. We live in a commercial age, and we live in a time when children’s books are generating unheard-of revenues. Children’s books have become products — and that is not going to change. To fight against it would be to tilt at windmills — although every now and then those windmills look very attractive to me. Every time I read a sequel that is unworthy of its successor; every time I see a miniaturized or an enlarged edition of a book that should never have been miniaturized or enlarged; every time I see a classic rendered inane by being made a pop-up, I must admit I am ready to pick up that lance and go tilting. For the creation of a fine, exquisite book for children is such a miracle, and it happens — as do all miracles — so seldom, that anything that destroys or cheapens or reduces the power of that miracle is, indeed, an atrocity. I am aware that some of our commercialism has brought good results: there are some superb book-and-audiocassette packages that help parents share fine books with children; there has been a proliferation of good books available in paperback and in bookstores; and some excellent movie and television adaptations have been made that can and often do lead children to the books themselves. But, in the end, most of what we are doing in this commercial age of children’s books is robbing children of something precious and rare — a beautiful book that is shared as that and loved as that and need be nothing more. We do a great number of terrible things to our children because of money. We are not feeding and clothing them well these days in the United States; an unprecedented number of our children are homeless; when budgets are cut, those who serve young people and those who teach young people are often the targets. And when money is to be made on children’s books, it is adults who make it. Unfortunately, that commercialism will continue. But in this issue of the magazine in which each year we print the Newbery and Caldecott speeches and celebrate what is fine and good in books for children, I want to applaud not only artists like David Macaulay and Jerry Spinelli, who create with conviction and integrity, but also creators like Robert McCloskey, whose integrity has remained intact for fifty years. And I would like to give special applause to all those special individuals who publish books and who, against much pressure and tremendous harassment, have held true to their own vision of keeping books unspoiled. We cannot expunge commercialism. What we can do is to be grateful for and celebrate those who are unwilling to be swept away by it. — Anita Silvey |
hen
I thumb through this decidedly provocative bunch of illustrations
made by Bob McCloskey for his new book, Homer Price, hundreds
of tangent thoughts pop up. Memories are stirred and along comes
the early stages of a smile and a crinkling at the corners of the
eyes. What a universal and delightful brat, this Homer Price! Brats
like him do belly-flops on icy hillsides and rip their pants in
apple trees. They hook rides with the milkman and hitch on to the
back of street cars. They play run-sheep-run and they hate girls
— sometimes they begin to like girls when they are very, very
old, around fifteen. They ring bells at front doors; when maids
answer they snitch ice cream and cakes from the kitchen door and
run away with bubbling glee; and they know they are never going
to amount to much in the future unless they sell newspapers.
his
is to welcome Homer Price to Tom Sawyer’s gang, that immortal
and formidable band of boys of American fiction. For this boy is
a real boy, thinking out loud and living out these rich and hilarious
dilemmas with solemn and devastating humor. The way Homer and his
friends of Centerburg cope with, and master, such surprising emergencies
with implications as radio robbers, Superman, musical mousetraps,
ferocious doughnut machines, housing problems, and mass production
is the American comic genius in its top form. The stories, too,
have all the excitement of the fantastic and incredible, so convincingly
woven into the daily life of the Mid-Western small town as to seem
as honest-to-goodness true as the front page of the Westport
Town Crier. And above all, each one is in every line, good
fun from start to finish
hould
the recession get serious, a good inexpensive way for a tired man
to find release from his tensions would be to go for a spin in Grampa
Hercules’ Hide-a-Ride Machine.
ecently,
Robert McCloskey came to Boston to celebrate the fiftieth birthday
of a small miracle — a perfect book called Make Way for
Ducklings (Viking). As he talked to press and well-wishers,
he spoke about his refusal to sell any further rights for those
ducklings: he plans to leave them forever and perfect on the pages
of the book. |
  
 
  |
||||||||
