Newberry: The Life and Times of a Maine Clam

by Vincent G. Dethier

Newberry, a clam who wears a purple muffler, leads a life of adventure in and around the Maine mudflat he calls home.

85 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1981

About the author

Vincent Gaston Dethier was an American physiologist and entomologist. Considered a leading an expert in his field, he was a pioneer in the study of insect-plant interactions and wrote over 170 academic papers and 15 science books. From 1975 until his death, he was the Gilbert L. Woodside Professor of Zoology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst where he was the founding director of its Neuroscience and Behavior Program and chaired the Chancellor's Commission on Civility. Dethier also wrote natural history books for non-specialists, as well as short stories, essays and children's books.

Reviews

[Sally · Rating 5 out of 5]

This children's book has twelve chapters recounting the adventures of Newberry, a clam who lives in a mudflat on an island in Blue Hill, Maine. My mother and I read this book a week ago while taking breaks from working on her summer place on an island in Maine, opening up for the season.

Where has Newberry been all my life? In these delightful stories, not only does Newberry reveal much of his own natural history in the dealings of his everyday life, but he also learns much from other creatures he meets with whom he is unfamiliar. The fanciful and yet down-to-earth nature of the stories (in which Newberry makes friends with a human doctor, who helps him heal his stiff neck by advising Newberry to get a pure woolen muffler to keep his neck warm, which muffler features largely in most of the other stories) is charming. The illustrations are equally so.

After meeting Newberry, I did experience some reluctance (granted, it was temporary) to go out and dig myself a mess of clams. I kept a weather eye out for any clam wearing a muffler, to make sure I would not include it in my haul.

[Emmy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Found this at a used book shop and thought it would be cute. Was rather disappointed, though. It's not a horrible book, but I found it hard to really connect with any of the characters (human or otherwise) and I quickly got bored with Newberry's "adventures" which seemed to be the same story wrapped up in different ways.

Basically, each tale was some variation of "Newberry's neck was sore so he was feeling lazy and/or cross, and something bad almost happened, but really didn't. And if he happened to see his friend the doctor (who is a human, by the way), he (the doctor) ends up making some thoughtless comment about clam chowder (because we humans are too thick to realize that comments like that are insensitive).

It was a silly sort of book, but not in a good way.

[Frances · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tremendous lark, especially with my son