Destination: Maine

Books: by Robert McClosky

A GUEST POST BY BRETTE SEMBER

Blue Hill village across the bay

When I was a child, each summer my family rented a beautiful old cottage on Smith Cove on the Penobscot Bay, near Blue Hill, Maine. I spent hours exploring the shore, turning over rocks, poking at mussels, finding feathers, digging for clams, and even swimming in the frigid water.

Many afternoons were spent with a good book on the old porch swing, overlooking the deep blue waters, green islands, and the foggy smudge that was Castine across the bay. We also picked wild blueberries in a nearby field, visited an old grocery store, and enjoyed boat rides. Mornings were cold and evenings chilly, but the sunlight was spectacular on the water in the daylight. I fell in love with . And with Robert McCloskey. Robert McCloskey was not a native Mainer, but his children’s books showed that he had fallen in love with Maine just as I had.

As long as I can remember, Blueberries for Sal, One Morning in Maine, and Time of Wonder were my favorite picture books. In them, McCloskey perfectly captures the cold water, rocky coast, and incredible wildlife. I felt as though I was living those stories which were set in the same portion of the coast we visited.

Blueberries

In Blueberries for Sal, a young girl goes blueberry picking with her mother in a field and happens upon a mother bear and her baby who are also picking and eating the wild blueberries. Kerplink, kerplank, kerplunk was the sound McCloskey ascribed to the blueberries hitting the bottom of the tin bucket, the same sound I heard as we picked them – but we didn’t see any bears. The field we picked in seemed identical to Sal’s with bushes set among large boulders. As a child, I was sure it was the same. The book is filled with McCloskey’s lifelike pen and ink drawings that exactly captured the Maine I knew.
In One Morning in Maine, Sal experiences a typical (and wonderful) Maine morning. The morning is cool and Sal is appropriately dressed for a summer Maine morning in a warm robe and slippers, then pants and a sweater. She plays along the shore while her father digs clams and she slips and falls on the wet, slippery seaweed that coats the rocks. Out comes her loose tooth and disappears in the gray mud along the shore. Sal spends most of the morning worrying about the lost tooth, but as she does so McCloskey shares the little details that define Maine – the seaweed that is used to cover the clams her father has dug, the small boat they take to the grocery store, the inimitable Maine characters who own the store and local garage, and my favorite line in the entire book, “clam chowder for lunch,” something I used to repeat as a child, with a Maine accent. The pen and ink drawings in this book are just as wonderful as in Blueberries for Sal and were like snapshots of my life in that magical place.
Time of Wonder is another McCloskey Maine picture book, but this one is more poetic and is about the colorful drawings which bring the coast to life. We stopped going to Maine when I was about 12, but I never stopped loving it. When I got married, we went to Maine on our honeymoon and even were able to take a drive and find the cottage my family stayed at. A few years ago we took our children to Maine and they fell in love with it too – but they were already readers of McCloskey’s books and knew just what to expect!

 

Family Vacation

Brette Sember

Brette Sember is the author of over 30 books and blogs at www.NoPotCooking.com about cooking with parchment paper. Her web site is www.BretteSember.com. She hopes to visit Maine again very soon.(This bio was updated 2/28/2011)

Thanks, Brette, for this charming look at a childhood love.  And I hope you get to make a trip to Maine really soon. Now it is our  readers turn to chime in with their favorite childhood vacation. Did it come with a book attached?

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Here is Ben and Bill’s Chocolate Emporium on the web. Their Bar Harbor location is closed until next month, but they also have a store in Massachusetts–and mail order.

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©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

Lobster boat off coast of Maine

Destination: Maine

Book: The Lobster Chronicles: Life on a Very Small Island by Linda Greenlaw

And don’t forget your musical accompaniment over at Music Road, where Kerry Dexter will introduce you to a Maine fiddler and a list of “storytellers in song” that hail from Maine.

If only somebody would make lobster ice cream. Oh, come on…it would be slightly sweet, and a beautiful pink color. I think it is a great idea. But then I think lobster anything is a great idea. When I went on a road trip in Maine, I was in lobster heaven.

We sat in a shack at the end of a wooden pier and ate broiled lobster dinners with baked potatoes and corn on the cob. We had lobster salad served on fine china in a glass-enclosed sun porch or lobster rolls from McDonald’s for lunch. When I did not see them on the breakfast menu, I asked for a special  lobster omelet for breakfast, and got one–no problem.

I also wanted to see the lobster boats and learn more about how they are caught and processed. On our road trip through Maine, we took pictures of lobster traps and fishing nets and boats of every kind. When we left Acadia National Park, we even visited the lobster museum and hatchery just outside Bar Harbor. It is called the Mt. Desert Oceanarium, which caused us to drive right past–because, of course, we were looking for LOBSTER. (Sorry, I just checked and it was not presently open, and no word when it is reopening. That is a shame, because it is a great attraction for kids.)

And when Maine come up on the schedule for our Great American Road Trip, and needed a piece of travel literature that sets the stage for a visit to Maine…of course I thought of Lobster–[amazonify]0786885912::text::::The Lobster Chronicles [/amazonify], a book about a woman lobster fisher, Linda Greenlaw.

Memories came flooding back. Northern Maine in general has its own character–gray weathered buildings, bookstores in every town no matter how small, historic markers commemorating some of American’s earliest history.

Isle au Haut Lighthouse

As I read this travel book about life on the speck of an island called Isle au Haut, I heard the rhythm of the sea. Greenlaw’s sentences reflect the shushing of water against the shore.  Except, that is, when she gets angry and her rhythm quickens. Then she chooses harsher words and creates in the reader the frustrations she feels. Her chosen career provides plenty of frustration. She and her father pull in empty traps for days at a time. “Changing the water in the traps,” she calls it. Off islanders impinge on the fishing territory, and the local lobster fishermen’s association–all twelve of them– can’t bring themselves to do anything about it.

She would like to find a husband and start a family, but on this island of forty-seven permanent residents, the single men are either related to her or gay. She describes her people, “whose family tree is rooted firmly in granite, spruce and salt on both maternal and paternal sides.”  Although Greenlaw turned down the opportunity to go to law school, she clearly excels at communication.

In The Lobster Chronicles, you will learn a great deal about lobster and lobster fishing, but you will also learn a lot about Greenlaw, who is open and honest and down to earth. Life on the small island struck me as similar to  life in a small town–arguments that erupt over strange things and keep going for generations; jealousies and mutual caring in equal portions.

Because the lobster season runs May to December, Greenlaw has a lot of time to write. Her first book,[amazonify]B00008RWB7::text:::: The Hungry Ocean[/amazonify] (2000), talks about her life as the first female captain of an swordboat, ( ocean fishing) That life became part of the movie, The Perfect Storm. She has also written mysteries (2007 and 2008) and with her mother, wrote a cookbook, [amazonify]1401300731::text::::Recipes from a Very Small Island[/amazonify]. As far as I know, they did not include a recipe for lobster ice cream.

Maine, like all the states we visit, can present different faces in different places.  What is your favorite part of Maine? What means Maine to you? For Kerry Dexter, at Music Road, it means music. Kerry is part of the Great American Road trip with the music to go along with the visit to Maine. Please join the Road Trip conversation. (And please remember that any shopping you do through my Amazon links, gives me a few cents to buy books and rent movies to share with you.)

This content is a post from: A Traveler's Library To comment on this post or search for related information, click on the link to A Traveler's Library. We'll leave a light on for you.

©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.