Robert McCloskey’s illustrations are truly realistic and beautiful as he shows images of the island showing its beauty towards the two girls. Robert McCloskey’s illustrations are much different in this book than in his other books since the images are actually colored instead of the usual black and white images that he usually uses for most of his books. Robert McCloskey has done a great job at making the story extremely dreamy and beautiful as he describes the girls’ adventures on the island in a dreamy and poetic fashion, giving the story a beautiful feeling, the type of feeling you get when you go to a wonderful place. “Time of Wonder” may seem a bit too boring for smaller children, but it is truly one of Robert McCloskey’s most beautiful and moving books ever created! “Time of Wonder” is a Caldecott Medal award winning book from the great mind of Robert McCloskey and it is about how a family spends their time on the islands enjoying the beauties of the island. However, when I read this book later on as an adult, I realized that this book was a truly moving book.

When I first read this book as a child, I did not really care for this book since I thought that this book was too boring to sit through. Twelve years later on June 30, 2003, McCloskey died at his home in Deer Isle, Maine. Three others of his picture books are set on the coast and concern the sea. McCloskey's wife and eldest daughter Sally are reputed to be the models for little Sal and her mother in Blueberries for Sal (1948), a picture book set on a 'Blueberry Hill' in the vicinity. They had two daughters, Sally and Jane, and settled in New York State, spending summers on Scott Island, a small island off Little Deer Isle in East Penobscot Bay. In 1940, he married Peggy Durand, daughter of the children's writer Ruth Sawyer.

After Vesper George he moved to New York City for study at the National Academy of Design. McCloskey was born in Hamilton, Ohio, during 1914 and reached Boston in 1932 with a scholarship to study at Vesper George Art School. He was also the writer for Make Way For Ducklings, as well as the illustrator for The Man Who Lost His Head. Four of those eight books were set in Maine: Blueberries for Sal, One Morning in Maine, Time of Wonder, and Burt Dow, Deep-water Man the last three all on the coast. He both wrote and illustrated eight picture books and won two Caldecott Medals from the American Library Association recognizing the year's best-illustrated picture book.

John Robert McCloskey was an American writer and illustrator of children's books.

Time of Wonder by Robert McCloskey