[BOOK REVIEW] One Morning in Maine by Robert McCloskey

Title:  One Morning in Maine

Author:  Robert McCloskey

Genre:  Family / Childhood / Growing Up / Travel

Year Published: 1952

Year Read:  2010

Publisher: The Viking Press

Source:  Library

Content Rating:  Ages 5+ (Nothing Objectionable)

Buy on:  Amazon  //  Book Depository 

“One Morning in Maine” is a Caldecott Honor Book from the great mind of Robert McCloskey and it is about how a young girl named Sal learns about the wonders of growing up after she loses her first baby tooth.  “One Morning in Maine” is a truly inspiring story about growing up that many children will easily love.

Robert McCloskey has done an excellent job at both illustrating and writing this book.  Robert McCloskey’s illustrations are much more beautiful in this book than in his other books as the characters look so realistic and Sal’s expressions as she realizes that she has a loose tooth are extremely realistic as she expresses shock and pure excitement, like any child who has a loose tooth and they are sometimes scared because they are worried about the pain if their baby tooth comes loose and the pure excitement they exhibit as they see their baby tooth come out.  Robert McCloskey’s illustrations are also in black and white, giving this story an old fashioned feeling while also making this book more effective in displaying the characters’ emotions, as the characters expressions are realistic.  Robert McCloskey makes this story extremely cute and inspiring a the same time as Sal tries to figure out the meaning of growing up after she looses her tooth and many children will easily relate to Sal’s emotions about her loose tooth as many children have often lose their baby teeth and they usually have feelings of fear and excitement as they fear that they will feel pain when their baby teeth will fall out and feel excitement as they experienced the joys of growing up.

Parents should know that this book might be a tad bit too long for smaller children to handle as the book is about sixty-pages long and parents might want to read the first thirty pages one night and then the next thirty pages the next night so that children would not be easily bored by this book.

“One Morning in Maine” is a fantastic book about the wonders of growing up and will be an instant classic for many children who also experience the wonders of a loose baby tooth.  I would recommend this book to children ages five and up since smaller children might become bored with the length of this book.

* 1953 Caldecott Honor