Don’t judge me for this, but I do not remember the circumstances under which I first encountered Robert McCloskey’s Homer Price books. What a way to open a piece about the impact he’s made on my life and writing, right?
Don’t get me wrong, the picture books — especially Make Way For Ducklings, Blueberries for Sal, One Morning in Maine, and Lentil — were a staple of my childhood, since my mother was a proud New Englander and my father a proud Ohioan, and both of them lovers of stories who made sure our house was stocked full of books. It must have been somewhere in grade school — early enough, I suppose for me to have adopted them into my subconscious and then forgotten the specifics — that I read them. But, like I said, I don’t remember.
What I do remember is a moment, many years later, when my own children were young, and I found myself standing in the aisle of a used bookstore holding an obviously-beloved, battered copy of Homer Price. In that moment, I could feel the spark of memory flash clear and bright inside of me. I flipped through the pages, my grin widening with each new tale, each brilliant piece of art, and I felt something deeper than simple nostalgia coursing through me. I bought the book, toted it home to my two boys, and when the time was right, we read it together. Many times. (My son even memorized the doughnut song. I wonder if he can still quote it …)
And so on the blessed cycle goes, father to son, generation to generation, the books of Robert McCloskey continuing to make their mark on young readers. So what is it about these novels that has managed to speak through time? Here are my thoughts.
When a child enters the world of a book, they become a traveler in a new country. Their journey begins, as do all of this sort, by immediately taking stock of everything — all of the world’s rules, assumptions, and of course, the people and places they discover. This fictional world becomes its own secret universe. During the time inside the pages of the book, the outside world dwindles, and the possibilities presented by that fictional universe expand until they become as real as the world in which the child lives.
At least, that’s what happens in the best ones. That’s what happened to me in the world of Robert McCloskey’s books.
McCloskey presented me with a secret universe which I understood and claimed residence as my own. Places like the motor court and the lunch counter, and people like Grandpa Hercules and Uncle Telemachus were mine alone. I didn’t have many bookish friends as a child, and I don’t recall ever meeting a single soul with whom I could talk about these books. So they were my own little secret, a place of my own where I could go and poke around whenever I wanted. Mid-century Centerburg was nothing like suburban Central Florida, where I grew up in the 1990’s. Yet, I knew it. And to me, it felt as familiar as the places I frequented as a child.
But that wasn’t all.
By walking into this secret universe, I gained all sorts of secret knowledge. Through Homer, I learned about shortwave radios, operating doughnut machines, catching crooks, ragweed allergies, and much more. These were all secret pieces of information — call them marginally useless if you like — which I possessed and felt proud of. Also, Homer was a friend, a kindred explorer in this secret universe, who felt his way through his obstacles in a way that felt truthful. In many children’s novels, rising to confront the challenges of the story with inexplicable skills is presented as a magic talent, which always feels a bit cheap to me. In McCloskey’s books, they were authentic. Homer did what any kid would have done in the situation. He figured things out on the spot, using his resources, his willpower, and the community around him. And I loved him for it.
Of course, there’s one final ingredient: the silliness. In his Homer Price books, McCloskey gently communicates a fundamental truth about the world: it’s a weird, wonderful place, where weird, wonderful things happen. I won’t go as far as to say that any adult who doesn’t believe this is lying, but I do believe we’re committing a grave error if we ignore the weird, wild, wonderfulness of the world around us, where irony and non-sequiturs are everywhere. McCloskey knew that life is comically absurd at times, that truth is stranger than fiction. Sometimes the brawny Super-Duper straight from the pages of the comics is just a guy in tights and a cape who can’t move his car out of the ditch.
But understanding this — having it reinforced, I should say — in no way took the shine out of the world. It wasn’t as if knowing that politicians didn’t always shoot straight, that adults seemed to be making it up as they go along, and that the ridiculous is more common than anyone would like to admit, made me retreat into a ho-hum existence. In fact, it made the everyday more wonderful. Who knew when the next giant ball of yarn or out-of-control doughnut machine was going to spring to life in front of my face? It was best to always be ready for it. Life was an adventure.
The one final theme of McCloskey’s novels that has begun to resonate most with me as I’ve grown older is community. We’ve come so far and made so many technological advancements in the centuries we’ve occupied this planet. Now we can wander the Louvre art museum from our couches and video chat with someone standing on a mountain peak in the Alps. But the one thing we keep coming back to is community. We need to be in a place where we’re known, accepted, and given the dignity of trust. Centerburg is such a place.
I suppose all of this is why, in the spring of 2014, when I first conceived of a comic character named Tumbleweed Thompson and went looking for a setting in which to place him, I landed in a small town called Rattlesnake Junction, Colorado. It was a frontier American boomtown which came hurtling out of my imagination fueled by Centerburg, Ohio, with a good bit of Mayberry, North Carolina, for good measure. Tumbleweed got a best friend (well, eventually, they get there), a Homer-esque, good-hearted boy named Eugene Appleton. And, of course, many of the same themes as Homer Price began to emerge in the Tumbleweed Thompson adventures. My stories were full of adventure, heart, and humor, but at their core, they’re about what it means to grow up in the world, to find your way and make your choices within a small town that doesn’t always make sense.
As those fledgling stories have grown into a series of novels, I’m proud that the adventures of Eugene and Tumbleweed stand in the proud tradition of American adventure stories alongside Tom & Huck, The Great Brain, and even good ol’ Homer Price. The greatest gift any young reader can be given — and which I hope I can give to the readers who enter the world of Tumbleweed Thompson — is the confidence to enter that world and instantly know it as a world, like their own, which is weird, wild, and wonderful. And having entered that world, they decide that they want to stay and poke around a bit.
Now that’s a real good thing to do, isn’t it?
Editor’s Note: This article was partly inspired by the Robert McCloskey Museum, where this month they are celebrating what would have been McCloskey’s 110th birthday. If you find yourself nearby, please stop by (there might be donuts)!
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He lives with his wife, two boys, and a cowardly dog in a small town in Western New York that’s pretty much Mayberry. He wishes he could play the banjo, and is either eating a pie right now, or thinking about it.
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