Robert McCloskey
1914–2003 · American author and illustrator of Make Way for Ducklings and Blueberries for Sal, winner of two Caldecott Medals.
Robert McCloskey was born in 1914 in Hamilton, Ohio, where he grew up with two sisters. At sixteen, as a summer camp counselor, he carved a totem pole that stood at the camp for more than fifty years, and at nineteen he made decorative relief panels for the Hamilton Municipal Building. He won a scholarship to the Vesper George Art School in Boston and later studied at the National Academy of Design in New York. Make Way for Ducklings (1941), about a family of mallard ducks who settle in the Boston Public Garden, won the Caldecott Medal in 1942. He also wrote Homer Price, about a boy in a small Ohio town. In 1940 he married Peggy Durand, daughter of the children's writer Ruth Sawyer, and they had two daughters. The family spent summers on Scott Island, off Deer Isle in Maine, the setting of four of his picture books; his wife and daughter Sarah were the models for Blueberries for Sal (1948). Time of Wonder won him a second Caldecott Medal in 1958. He died on Deer Isle in 2003.
Robert McCloskey is also an author in the library: author page and works.
Faith: Faith not well documented. Source: Wikipedia
Key dates
- 1914 Born in Hamilton, Ohio
- 1940 Marries Peggy Durand
- 1941 Make Way for Ducklings published
- 1942 Caldecott Medal
- 1948 Blueberries for Sal published
- 1958 Second Caldecott Medal, for Time of Wonder
- 2003 Dies on Deer Isle, Maine
Fun facts
- A bronze statue of Mrs. Mallard and her ducklings from Make Way for Ducklings stands in Boston, where thousands of children climb on it every year, and there is a Make Way for Ducklings parade every Mother's Day. (Source: Robert McCloskey (Wikipedia))
Read about them
Grades K–2
- Make Way for Ducklings · In the library
Grades 3–5
- Homer Price · In the library
More lives
Richard Adams · Tamim Ansary · Paul Auster · Donald Barthelme · Saul Bellow · Nathaniel Benchley