Mr. McCloskey’s Marvelous Mallards: The Making of Make Way for Ducklings
by Emma Bland Smith; illus. by Becca Stadtlander
Primary    Calkins/Astra    40 pp.    g
11/22    978-1-63592-392-6    $18.99
e-book ed.  978-1-63592-827-3    $11.99

On page one of this true story behind the making of the 1942 Caldecott-winning Make Way for Ducklings, readers see legendary author-illustrator McCloskey hard at work in his studio. After completing his first children’s book (Lentil, 1940), he wants to put mallard ducks into a story but struggles to draw them correctly. He brings home a box of “very alive (and very LOUD)” ducklings after deciding that he needs “live models.” They wreak havoc, but he “was willing to do whatever it took to make these drawings perfect,” and in the end, the drawings were “absolutely top-notch!” Smith emphasizes her subject’s determination (respectfully referring to him throughout as “Mr. McCloskey”), with the spreads depicting the ducks’ “terrible mess” and “infernal quacking” being sure to delight young readers. Stadtlander captures it all in thickly textured gouache and colored-pencil illustrations. Back matter includes a note from McCloskey’s daughter Jane; information about publisher Viking’s May Massee, the exacting editor depicted in the story; a timeline; and more. Children’s literature aficionados will note mention of McCloskey’s roommate (who was, in point of fact, illustrator Marc Simont) and will also note the story’s absence of red wine, which he and Simont fed the ducks to slow them down for easier drawing. This is the children’s version of that tale, after all—and a satisfying one at that.

From the November/December 2022 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.