One Morning in Maine

This warm story about a lost tooth generates good feelings.

Author: Robert McCloskey Illustrator: Robert McCloskey Pages: 64 Publisher: Penguin Putnam Inc. Published Date: 01/01/1952 Genre: Fiction - Picture Book PB Price: $6.99 Publisher's Recommended Reading Level: Ages 4-8 Read Aloud: 4-5 Read Alone: 6-8 Awards: Caldecott Honor

Common Sense Note

Although it lacks tension and poetic description, this long picture book portrays the sweet mood of a contented family. The drawings are dated but comfortable and appealing.

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Common Sense Review

Reviewed By: Whitney Stewart

Robert McCloskey's books are old favorites, and adults enjoy reading them to children. Life in McCloskey's world is fairly safe and peaceful, and always full of natural beauty. The stories make adults remember childhood, and vacations, and simpler moments. And they make today's children feel calm and assured.

ONE MORNING IN MAINE is tender and right on the mark with a child's feelings about a lost tooth and an adventure with Dad. The softness of the pencil drawings perfectly matches the mood of Sal's wonder about life and growing up. Kids laugh at Sal's barrage of questions to her father about animals--and they gasp when Sal's tooth pops out and sinks into clam-filled mud.

Child readers understand Sal's pouting when she says the following: "I guess some clam will find my tooth and get what I wished for ... . If we come back here tomorrow and find a clam eating a chocolate ice-cream cone, why, we'll have to take it away from him and make him give my tooth back."

For more of McCloskey's comfortable family tales try Blueberries for Sal and Make Way for Ducklings.

From The Book

After breakfast, when Sal went out to help her father, she saw a fish hawk flying overhead, carrying a fish. "I have a loose tooth!" Sal called up to the fish hawk. The fish hawk flew straight to her nest on top of a tree without answering.

Plot Summary:

A loose tooth is both scary and fun for a child. Little Sal's fear over her wiggly tooth turns to jubilance and then despair. A lost tooth is also an age marker, and Sal is suddenly a big girl who can help her father and instruct her little sister. Although it's mildly didactic, this warm story generates good feelings.

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