Writer’s note: I recently heard a story on NPR about how 2011 marks the 70th anniversary of Robert McCloskey’s Caldecott Award winning children’s classic, Make Way for Ducklings. So I'm submitting a review of the book that I wrote for a Children’s Literature class I took a few years ago. From time to time, I’ll submit other children’s book reviews I handed in for the class. As readers of this blog know, I have my own style of review writing, but I was required to write in a certain style and I’m going to post what I turned in.
Also, I’m too lazy to change them.
McCloskey, Robert. Make Way for Ducklings. New York: The Viking Press, 1941.
Audience: Ages 3 to 8
Genre: Traditional Fantasy
Summary: A duck couple, Mr. and Mrs. Mallard, look for a place to live and raise a family. They settle in a pond at Boston’s Public Gardens, but decide the place is too wild and crowded for babies so they search for a new home. They settle along the Charles River where Mrs. Mallard hatches eight ducklings. She prepares the children to live in the city, while Mr. Mallard flies out to explore the river. Mrs. Mallard and her ducklings have to dodge the bustling traffic as they walk back to the Public Gardens. A kindly policeman halts traffic and calls for police back-up so the family can safely make their way home where they are reunited with their husband and father.
Themes: There is the idea of searching for and finding a home, a place where a family can feel safe and secure. The theme of family stability is demonstrated in the care Mr. and Mrs. Mallard give to finding a home to start their family and in the way Mrs. Mallard nurtures her ducklings. The police officer’s assistance to the duck family illustrates the theme of helping others in need, particularly those who are different from us and tend to get overlooked. McCloskey suggests stepping back from our busy pace and considering the needs of others.
Curriculum Connections: I see this as a story that would be read to kids in around the first grade so I would make the curriculum simple. Ask the children if this is a fiction or non-fiction book. After establishing that the book is fiction, ask the kids if anything about Mr. and Mrs. Mallard and their ducklings reminds them of their own family. Take a few suggestions from the children. Then model for the children a picture a picture you drew of your own family and tell how it is similar to Make Way for Ducklings. For example, it could be a picture illustrating a mother (or father) taking care of the children by reading them a story or tucking them in bed at night. After students make their own drawings, give each child an opportunity to show his or her drawing to the class and talk about it.
Reader Response: I found Make Way for Ducklings to be a charming, endearing story, the kind that never grows old. The brown charcoaled pencil drawings evoke autumn on the East Coast during the 1940s. These images often have a comical flair, the best picture being the one in which the police officer stops traffic while the duck family crosses the street. This was a fun book to read to my kids.
Technology Connection: The following link provides an activity guide that includes lesson plan ideas for building cognition by putting story events in sequence and emphasizing vocabulary words in the story. There are also ideas on integrative curriculum, connecting the story with music, art and science. http://www.liveoakmedia.com/client/guides/27319.pdfThis web link contains a brief art lesson plan for “egg carton ducks.” Other ideas integrate art with social studies by having students draw places named in the story and identifying them on a map of Boston. A similar idea is for children to make a chart showing the differences between a city, suburban and rural area. http://www.teachervision.fen.com/fiction/activity/1733.html?detoured=1
Gateway Reading: After Make Way for Ducklings, you have to read McCloskey’s Blueberries for Sal. It’s a beautiful story and an even better book. Both children’s books are classics and Caldecott Award winners – Ducklings winning the prize in 1942 and Blueberries in 1948.
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