If you encountered author and illustrator Robert McCloskey and stopped at Make Way for Ducklings, you would be missing out. McCloskey is renowned among children’s literature aficionados for his endearing story of the duck family that settles in Boston’s Public Gardens with the help of the city’s police department. McCloskey won one of his record-setting two Caldecott Medals for Make Way for Ducklings. Beyond ducklings, McCloskey lends his many talents to a variety of tales.
Today, we turn our attention to one of McCloskey’s lesser-known works, Burt Dow Deep-Water Man. This oeuvre, published in 1963, deserves to be listed among the finest children’s books, possibly of all time. This is a tall claim; Burt Dow is a tall tale.
Based on the real-life Maine legend by the same name, Burt Dow is an homage to a simpler time in the fishing and summer communities on the coast. The lyrical masterpiece follows Burt through his day, painting a picture of the years stitched together by the quiet rhythms of quotidian concerns. Burt lives with his sister, Leela, who makes meals and looks after the house. Leela is impatient (“Most impatient being on land or sea,” according to Burt), a contrast to Burt’s unflappable calm.
Retired from seafaring, Burt finds work as a handyman and takes minor fishing expeditions on his leaky old boat, the Tidely-Idley. A full-fledged character, the patched up, multi-colored boat transforms what is tawdry and worn into a whimsical adventure. The details of Burt’s life on the seas are hinted at but not outright stated. It seems the Burt whom McCloskey met on Deer Isle and on whom the book is based had a similarly storied past of sailing to all seven seas.
Though we don’t know much about Burt’s expeditions, the wild story of the day he was swallowed by a whale and finds the unlikely means of being belched up and pacifying all the other slap-happy wails shows a man of experience and seasoned calm.
Besides Leela, Burt also spends his days with a pet, the Giggling Gull. Together with Giggling Gull, Burt ventures out on the Tidely-Idley with much onomatopoeic fun. The extravagant vocabulary and clear placement of our deep-water man in the heroic tradition disguises a sophisticated story in the trappings of a little story of a simple, old man.
The quality of the text for reading aloud is sublime. Take this modest sampling:
By now the whale’s tummy was all a-quiver! It disturbed Burt’s aim a bit, and he misplaced a few blobs of cup grease. Well! The tummy began to make rumbling noises and flip-a-lot this-a-way, flip-a-lot that-a-way, and Burt knew right off that it would take only the littlest touch to make the tummy break loose from its moorings and get upset.
He, quick as he could, jumped into the Tidely-Idley and started the make-and-break, chuggety-bang! chuggety-bang!
“Giggling gull!” he shouted. “Wiggle your wings and fly away up into the for’ard hatway and tickle this whale’s throat with a feather!”
Of course the exhaust and jiggling of the make-and-break helped, but ‘twas the tickle that turned the trick!
Exquisite prose for readers of any age, clearly, like the epics before it, Burt Dow was intended to be spoken.
Whether for the marvelous lyricism, the quirky characters, or simply the whale of a tale (or the whale’s tail), Burt Dow manages to capture the imaginations of young listeners inspiring repetition, Christmas songs about Burt, and joy at all the goofiness.
While many of McCloskey’s other books that take place in Maine focus on the perspective of children and capture their untutored experience of the wild around them, Burt Dow offers a very different experience for the reader. There is nothing iridescent and undiscovered about Burt’s surroundings after decades of hard-won experience. And yet, Burt remains enthusiastic and celebratory about his daily rituals. He displays a child-like enjoyment of what could be seen as a sad life, reduced from sea-faring to taking odd-jobs and struggling with a continually leaking boat on the verge of retirement.
Because of his wonderous ability to make the old new, Burt does manage to have a truly new experience, a remarkable tale, larger than life and almost unbelievable.
The real Burt, recalled by people who knew him on Deer Isle, shared much of the character McCloskey describes in the book. Mary Lott, who spent her summers as a child in Maine in the 1950s and ‘60s, shared her memories of Burt with the New England Historical Society. She said, “He would say, ‘I’m not a captain, I’m a mate’.”
After Burt performed a few odd jobs for Lott’s family, he became a regular and would stay for dinner. The New England Historical Society states:
She remembers Burt Dow had hairy ears and chewed tobacco, always carrying his can with him. He was weathered, and wore wool pants and a raggedy sweater or shirt.
Most of all, he was sweet. He showed Mary and her brother the best place to find berries, where to fish for scallops. He taught them to row his little boat. He lent them a five-foot model schooner he had made – with rigging – to sail around the harbor near their home. He gave the McCloskey girls a rabbit.
These reminiscences bring together the incongruous parts of Burt, both the man and the character, that make him so appealing. At once the veteran of a dangerous and daring life and the kind and gentle man who cares for an obnoxious bird and gallantly appeases his impatient sister, Burt is complex. While the apparent glories of life have faded—no more voyage on the high seas—the sense of adventure remains in his patient tending to the small cares of an aging bachelor.
McCloskey wrote Burt Dow in 1963, just a year before the real-life Burt passed away. In the years since publication, the story has become a beloved favorite of many families and even inspired a children’s opera (you can listen to part of that gem here). It is fitting that Burt did not live to know the success of his fictionalized person. Fame has a terrible way of ruining a quiet life of beauty.
Today, Burt is remembered in local events and celebrated in the enduring tale of his larger than life adventures. Superfans can even stay at one of Ginny Poor’s two cottages at the Pilgrim’s Inn. However, a more fitting tribute to Burt, the man and the legend, might be to stay in your own home and marvel at the quiet humble tasks that surround us and the beauty they hold, the creatures in our own backyard, and the family members who require our patient kindness.
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