Season III, post 8: "Make Way for Ducklings"

Hello, I’m Richard Nicholas Nimz, prospector of the written word.  Well, I’ve done the Newbery, now it’s time for the Caldecott.  However, this book has a greater honor to its name.  Rather dubious given its connection, but I can still roll with it.  Ladies and gentleman, this is Robert McCloskey’s Make Way for Ducklings, the official children’s book of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

McCloskey, R.  (1941).  Make Way for Ducklings.  The Viking Press: New York.

Summary: Mr. and Mrs. Mallard are travelling the country searching for a place to raise their young.  Tired, they stop in Boston, where the promise of peanuts makes them stay.  Abandoning the attractive Common Garden because of pedestrians, they settle on an island in the Charles River, where they eventually hatch eight ducklings.  Mr. Mallard works his way upstream to explore one day, and soon after, Mrs. Mallard decides that the ducklings are ready to brave the streets of Boston.

Thoughts: This is a pretty good book.  McCloskey’s illustrations are monochrome, but they’re still appealing in their caricature and simplicity.  The story itself is also good fun, relatable and not too intense.  I especially like when a police officer who has befriended the ducks calls in backup to serve as their crossing guard, to the confusion of the man on the other end of the line.  That just amuses me.  However, it’s not the most gripping book in the world, and the landmarks of Boston are presented without a whole lot to stick them together, relegating them to fantasy unless you’ve been to Boston.  I personally think it’s above average, like a solid version of your average little kid’s book with animals.

However, this book actually had a bigger impact than just winning McCloskey his first Caldecott.  This book is extremely popular in Massachusetts, to the point that statues of Mrs. Mallard and the ducklings were set up in Common Garden in 1987.  In 1989, Massachusettsite by birth George H. W. Bush was elected president.  Two years later, in 1991, the Soviet Union is about to collapse and the two countries are coming closer together.  One of the signs of this was the construction of a matching set of statues in Moscow’s Novodevichy Park, presented from First Lady Barbara Bush to First Lady Raisa Gorbachev.  Speaking as a Texan, seeing a state treasure get adopted like that by another nation makes me a little proud for them.