Make Way for Ducklings

First published in 1941, the book tells the story of a pair of mallards who decide to raise their family on an island in the lagoon in Boston Public Garden. The book won the Caldecott Medal in 1942 and is the official children’s book of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. As of 2003, the book had sold over two million copies and was the most popular book for children in the United States in the 1940s and 1950s.

About Make Way for Ducklings in brief

Summary Make Way for DucklingsMake Way for Ducklings is a children’s picture book written and illustrated by Robert McCloskey. First published in 1941, the book tells the story of a pair of mallards who decide to raise their family on an island in the lagoon in Boston Public Garden. The book won the Caldecott Medal in 1942 and is the official children’s book of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. In 1991, Barbara Bush gave a duplicate of this sculpture to Raisa Gorbachev as part of the START Treaty, and the work is displayed in Moscow’s Novodevichy Park. As of 2003, the book had sold over two million copies and was the most popular book for children in the United States in the 1940s and 1950s. Praise for the book is still high over 70 years since its first publication, mainly for the enhancing illustrations and effective pacing. However, it has been criticized for having a loose plot and is no longer considered a must-have book by many parents of young children. It has been the subject of numerous TV shows, including “Duck Dynasty” and “The New Adventures of Ducklings” on PBS stations across the U.S.

and in Europe and Australia. It is also the inspiration for the movie “The Secret Life of ducks” (2012), which is based on the book’s events. It was the second book written by McCloskeys, who also illustrated the film “The Great Gatsby” (1966) The book was published by Simon & Schuster, a division of Random House, in 1941 and has sold more than 2 million copies since then. The family of ducks lives in the Public Garden with their mother, Mrs. Mallard, and their eight ducklings, named Jack, Kack, Lack, Mack, Nack, Ouack, Pack, and Quack. In the book, the family visits a policeman named Michael on the shore, who feeds them peanuts every day. When the family decides to stay in the Garden for the rest of the family’s lives, they end each day searching for peanuts and go to sleep when they fall to their little island. The people on the island admire the family of ducklings and stop traffic to let them cross the streets.