It’s a gentler world.
Cities bustle, but not too fast for a family of ducks. A little girl wanders into the path of a bear. So, she feeds him blueberries. People tinker with radios, row boats in the ocean and make doughnuts.
Yet, in an industry dominated by a boy wizard named Harry, the nostalgic stories of the late Robert McCloskey continue to sell.
McCloskey died Monday at his home on Deer Isle. He was 88.
His publisher, Viking Children’s Books, estimates that more than two million copies have been sold of his best known children’s book, “Make Way for Ducklings.” First published in 1941, it has never been out of print.
“He tapped something that was quintessentially American,” said Regina Hayes, his publisher for 21 years.
In his gentle way, he wrote about home, safety and family, she said. Every child can relate to those themes.
“He wrote and illustrated just eight books,” Hayes said. “Seven of them are still in print. I think that’s quite remarkable.”
They do look different than most of the books on store and library shelves though, Hayes said. McCloskey’s illustrations were done before color was easily produced, creating a kind of sepia-toned nostalgia.
They look timeless to some, dated to others.
At the Lewiston and Auburn public libraries, the books are checked out from time to time, but the pace is intermittent.
Most are borrowed five or six times a year, though there are several copies of each.
The books can find it tough to grasp a child’s attention amid modern publishing’s saturated colors, and computerized graphics.
“They were from a quieter time,” said David Moorhead, the children’s librarian at the Lewiston Public Library.
Pam Riley Osborn, the children’s librarian in Auburn, said she has watched the interest slow. But the books will stay on the shelves. McCloskey’s Maine connection – he set several of his stories here – makes him more important to her library.
Besides, his illustrations are also some of the most beautiful in all of children’s publishing, Osborn said. The detail within “Blueberries for Sal,” particularly the expression on the cover of the little girl’s face, remind her of her own childhood.
It’s that nostalgia that one local book seller said keeps the book in print.
“Kids don’t come in asking for his books,” said Cheryl Perrino, manager of Mr. Paperback in Lewiston.
Parents and grandparents want to share the books they remember as children, she said. The demand is constant.
Hayes believes that’s the appeal.
“It’s perfectly natural for people to want to share a book they loved as a child,” Hayes said. “They really have touched people.”
In 1991, Hayes accompanied McCloskey to Boston, where he signed 50th anniversary copies of “Make Way for Ducklings.”
People rode on buses for hours to tell the aging author how his stories had influenced them, she said.
“He had affected their whole lives,” she said.
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