Sunday, June 30, 2013

Make Way for Ducklings

This just happened, on my way home from visiting Dad at the house. I was driving back south on Linden Street Road, and a mother duck and her duckling emerged (from the ditch by the trailer park). I brake for ducklings. So do a lot of people!

This is the statue in Boston's Public Garden.

This is the book by Robert McCloskey. The cover illustration is copyrighted.

My dad is fine.  The ducklings and their mother are fine. My mom is fine, too. I think we're all tired and relieved.

7 comments:

seana graham said...

Yey!

Although I was a little worried for a second that you didn't know those ducks weren't real...

Marcoantonio Arellano (Nene) said...

Glad all is well, mi amiga

M.J.Iuppa said...

So glad to hear this good news, K.
Speedy recovery for all.
M.J.

Kathleen said...

Thanks, dears!

Wait! Those ducks are real?!

Collagemama said...

Time for some red wine. Robert McCloskey would approve. This is one of my favorite storybooks, and a great story about it:

His second and perhaps best-known book, Make Way for Ducklings, won the prestigious Caldecott Medal in 1942. In the story, a mother duck searches the streets of Boston for a safe place to raise her young. McCloskey began the book by recalling the hilarious scenes of ducks crossing grid-locked Boston streets. To illustrate the detailed movements of his characters with authenticity, McCloskey bought a half dozen southern mallards at a city market from a poultry dealer. He spent the next few weeks crawling around his studio, sketching the ducks and cleaning up their droppings. McCloskey put them in a bathtub to sketch their swimming movements. And when they waddled too fast for him to draw, McCloskey fed the ducks red wine to slow them down. Evident from the richly detailed charcoal illustrations, McCloskey returned to Boson to sketch the book’s background alive with parks, bridges, fences, streets, people and cars.

http://www.ohioana-authors.org/mccloskey/highlights.php

Kathleen said...

Ha, HA! It IS time for red wine!

Bethany Reid said...

I love this book and children's books, anyway, always make me think of my Dad. Thanks for the update