Her writing is clear, with a quiet irony and without pretense, much like the elemental, appealing paintings and drawings by her father.īest known for his book illustrations, McCloskey was also a talented fine artist. Much of her childhood was spent, often outdoors, with her sister Sal-of McCloskey’s iconic Blueberries for Sal fame-crawling around rocks and tide pools. She tells us what it was like to grow up on Scott Island, off Deer Isle. Jane McCloskey conveys an intimacy with the coastal/island landscape. The illustrations in this book include nuanced paintings and drawings of Maine coastal icons such as islands, boats, and seagulls local characters and McCloskey’s family scenes of Mexico where the family lived for a few winters travels in Italy and Greece and scenes of his Ohio childhood home. Less-well-known aspects of McCloskey’s life are also revealed, along with remarkable, undiscovered paintings-many of which his own author-daughter had never seen-found after his death “stashed in closets, hidden everywhere.” While McCloskey was a gifted artist, he was not much recognized for his skill as a painter. It includes 50 never-published-before paintings and drawings by her father as well as familiar images from his children’s books, which are here given context within the framework of his life.

This book is a result of a lifetime of sleuthing.”Īs both a biography of Robert McCloskey-author of Blueberries for Sal, One Morning in Maine, and Make Way for Ducklings, among other classics-and as a memoir of the author’s own life with her father from childhood into adulthood, Jane McCloskey has created an exquisitely illustrated book. “Much of my understanding of my father came from detective work,” she wrote, “watching him and thinking about him and what he said and didn’t say, and reading his books and looking at his pictures.

In her book, Jane McCloskey, Robert McCloskey’s daughter, wrote that her father was a very private and shy person, so the book’s subtitle is well chosen. Robert McCloskey: A Private Life in Words and PicturesĪfter Robert McCloskey’s last book was published in 1963- Burt Dow, Deep-Water Man, inspired by a fisherman on Deer Isle-not much was heard or known about him, despite the wide success of his award-winning children’s books.

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