Blueberries for Sal

Published in 1948, Blueberries for Sal is a children's book written and illustrated by Robert McCloskey. The story follows Little Sal and her mother as they explore Blueberry Hill, picking berries to can for winter. On the other side of the hill Mother Bear and her cub are also gathering berries. Both children get lost and must find their way back to their respective mothers. McCloskeys story is particularly interesting in the way it reframes the ideas of nurturing and motherhood in the context of nature and wilderness. Not only does the wild landscape of Maine provide food - echoing mythologies surrounding berries and femininity - but the trans species parallels between human and bear mothers open new and important perspectives in the context of the “Feminine Mystique” described by Betty Fridan in post WWII America. 

The illustrations are integral to this story, as they are what capture young readers' attention and help children establish characters, setting, and the mood and overall tone of a story. The visual appeal of intricately drawn characters in stories stick with children and often have a larger impact on them than the written descriptions. McCloskey’s illustrations are noticeably unique. There is a stylized quality to his linework. All the drawings in Blueberries for Sal are done in the same blue ink which seems to mimic the blue color of the titular berries. He also seems to pay attention to the use of negative space and he creates a balance of pen and the blank white of the page. 

Partway through the story, Sal loses sight of her mother, and Little Bear loses track of hers. On the search for their respective mothers, Sal finds Mother Bear, and Little Bear finds Sal's mother. With each child following the wrong mother, we see an image of Blueberry Hill from faraway portraying the mixed up pairs. This image conveys just how vast the landscape is in comparison to the four of them. For the first time the feeling comes forth that one can truly get lost in nature and that nature can be a looming force as well as embodying the sublime. All the illustrations that show a wider view of the landscape fill the pages of the book as if they are trying to burst from them. The depth McCloskey is able to achieve in his drawings is particularly stunning. We see the dark silhouettes of the trees in the distant background and the lighter rolling hills in front of them. When we focus in on Sal and her mother picking berries, McCloskey’s attention to detail is evident in his use of careful linework to create the leaves, berries, and grasses. At the same time there is a simplicity to the imagery. It feels easily digestible and not overly stimulating for young readers. This simplicity is also a way of presenting nature in an abstract, impressionist way, which can be reassuring, though it is misleading in comparison with the reality of nature. 

The juxtaposition of vastness and simplicity in the illustrations of the landscape provide a reassuring context for what is most striking in this story: the series of trans species parallels between humans and bears. After carefully reading this book it is clear that there are parallels and also notable differences in McCloskey’s portrayal of humans and bears. The bear's faces are drawn in a very expressive way. Their features are humanistic and show a variety of emotions.

Both Little Bear and Sal are curious to explore and unafraid of the potential danger this can cause them. In the text, there is no mention of either of them having any fear. However both mothers are immediately filled with trepidation when they turn to see who is following them. McCloskey writes that after Mother Bear has turned around to see Sal, she was shocked: “She was old enough to be shy of people, even a very small person like Little Sal.” (p48) When Sal’s mother turns around to see Little Bear she too is startled. The text reads, “She was old enough to be shy of bears, even very small bears like Little Bear.” (p42) The word “bear” is mentioned three times in an almost fastidious way. It could be interpreted as a sign of “clumsy” childlike style (reaching to its target audience), or of some trepidation. In the sentence, two of the “bears” are just “ bear” but one is connected to “Little Bear” meaning that the third iteration of the word is actually the name of the cub, just like Sal, or just like you would name a stuffed bear. The innocence or cuteness of the story is suddenly broken when this sentence reinforces the idea that Little Bear is a bear. In contrast the sentence about Little Sal has no repeated wording, instead she is referred to as a person, then as people, then as Little Sal. Thus connecting the human child reader more with Little Sal, than with the bear. The text here is striking in its way of perfectly organizing a symmetry between the reactions of the two mothers (human and bear) while denying any possibility of further interspecies similarities. Both sentences operate on the same model, centered on the idea of being “old enough to be shy” and end on the same structure “even a very small person” / “even very small bears”. It is one of the only places in the text where the naiveness of the story is broken and a real awareness is felt that humans and animals, despite their similarities, are also distinct from one another.

It is interesting to note that McCloskey never gives Sal and Little Bear a chance to meet each other. This seems to emphasize that the story is truly about mother-child relationships more than any others. From the text, we can assume that if Little Bear and Sal had met they would not have been scared of each other in the same way that Sal's mother is shy of Little Bear, and Mother Bear is shy of Sal. This climax of the story, when Mother Bear sees Sal, is not that much of a surprise because of the fact that the book has consistently emphasized a separation between species throughout the organization of the illustrations. The spacial parallels keep the species separated and we don't see Sal and Little Bear cross paths. 

Mother Bear sees Sal and knows that they are different; person and bear, and Sal’s mother sees Little Bear and knows the same thing. This is a decision, or perhaps just a condition taught to the mothers by society, nature and humans do not mix. Children, however, inherently know to follow a mother, so to a child reading this book it is relatable and makes sense in a child's mind that the mothers, of whichever species would keep them safe. This is what the story tells the reader until the spell is broken. Neither Sal nor Little Bear ever realized they were following the wrong mother - until the mother turns around and it is apparent by their expressions - only that they were following a mother. The relationship in this case is more important to the children than the species. The choice to not have Little Bear and Sal meet also could stop the possibility of them running off together and getting lost in the woods because they do not fear each other. Although the book does not let us see this scenario play out, the messaging around animals being safe, and the outdoors being safe is one that is continued through the whole book.

 For the duration of the book, the people and the bears are sharing the same space, and doing relatively the same activity. However, while Sal, Little Bear, and Mother Bear are all eating berries, Sal's mother is not eating them, instead she is picking them and putting them in her pail. Perhaps this is a comment on the sophistication one must learn as one gets older. It could also be a comment on the connection between Sal and Little Bear, because Sal is not grown up enough to behave like a sophisticated human and instead possesses a more animalistic quality. Delayed gratification is a learned trait that is infamously hard for toddlers to understand. One develops the consciousness as a human to save for the future, however the bears are saving for the future in their fat, so they, unlike Sal, are planning ahead in the action of eating. As Sal drops the blueberries she picks into her pail and they make a distinct noise “kuplink! kuplank! kuplunk! Little bear also eats the berries as he comes upon them, stopping “now and then to munch and swallow.” These visceral noises not only effectively stay in a child's mind after reading the book but also echo the similarities between the two children. Yet the metallic noises also point to the manufactured objects that the humans have access to, such as metal pails, or the car that we see illustrated in the beginning. 

 In the first image we see when Sal and her mother initially enter Blueberry Hill, we can see their parked car close behind them, and behind that, houses in the distance. Immediately this image conveys the fact that Sal and her mother are visitors. They are clearly from a different place and are only temporarily exploring nature, as is evident by the car waiting for them to get back in when they are done foraging.

In contrast, the first image we see of Little Bear and his mother shows them already mid journey up the side of the mountain which seems to imply that they already are in nature, and that it is their home.

The images are simple yet expressive, drawn with only a blue pen on a white paper. Sometimes we see images of Blueberry Hill up close like the images of Sal and her mother immersed in the lush bushes. However when they are apart from one another and “all mixed up on Blueberry Hill '' the illustrations are from farther away, forcing us to look at the vastness of Blueberry Hill. The book however, does not point out in words that we, the reader, should be worried, it presents this landscape as comforting, familiar, and sublime, rather than unsafe for a child. 

The landscape is portrayed throughout the book as vast and endless. Sal and her mother appear so small in comparison. It is interesting then, that the very first image we see before we even see the title page shows them in the comfort of their own home canning the blueberries they've just picked. This same scene is repeated as the very last image of the book after the story has ended. In the image, through the small window we can see a glimpse of Blueberry Hill. On the windowsill sits a vase with a flower in it. The calendar on the wall shows a picture of a tree lined landscape. The whole illustration seems to convey the idea of a domesticated nature. Sal and her mother just had this wonderful experience out in nature but now they are back to their comfortable life indoors. All that remains from their trip are the berries they've harvested and a sliver of mountain in the distance. Nature is reduced to small frames in the home. The home is warm and safe but also holds back the outside, perhaps suffocating the mother into her domestic role. 

Sal holds the (circular) rubber seals that go on the jars as her mother spoons the compote into the jars. On the shelves in the back we can see sugar, flour, and other things bought at a store. A woodburning stove holds the pot, presumably with a batch of blueberries inside. There is a cyclical nature to this image. It is as if McCloskey is saying that humans cannot truly escape into the wild. No matter what beautiful experience Sal and her mother have in nature, at the end of the day they must return home. Perhaps in this way McCloskey’s own envy of the bears, who are free to live outside and explore nature without limits, comes through in his story.  This stark contrast between the vastness of the natural world and its limited and framed versions within the human kitchen is all the more important that this illustration of Sal and her mother canning the blueberries introduces two new fundamental questions: the first is the relationships of foraged (blueberries) to store bought/capital intensive goods (sugar); the second is the circularity of time this image represents (being both at the beginning and end of the tale). 

In the book time is never linear. We, the western reader perceive it as so, by default, but the book never mentions time in a linear way. The mothers and daughters are never saving, nor wasting time by slowly picking the blueberries. Sal's mother doesn't ever tell her to hurry when she is plodding along behind. In this way the story puts emphasis on the cyclical nature of time, and sets us in this circle of seasonality. It is never said what season they are picking blueberries in, but it is said that they need to save for winter. (p.6) Winter, though it seems far away in the book, comes, of course, every year, in a cycle. The illustrations of the book also set us in a cyclical rather than linear time. The book starts with the same first and last image, creating a loop. Although there is an analog clock hanging on the wall in the illustration, the time both on the first page and the last page, is 4pm. The clock alludes to the presence of time, but time never passes. If it does, it passes in the way of sharing time. In the lens of capitalism, the mother and daughter are not hustling, they aren't doing anything to make capital, but they are sharing time together to make something useful, blueberry jam. 

This first and last image puts Sal's mother in the position of stay at home mother, a traditional wife. Picking blueberries by hand and canning them takes a long time, it is a labor of love, love of the family and love of the land. This may have been the best option for Sal and her mother; we never have a sense of their economic status in the book. Blueberries for Sal is published in 1947 which places it at the end of an era of thrift where the “waste not want not” mindset was left over from the Great Depression and individual food production had flourished under the victory gardens of WW2 America. The 50s, soon to come, led to a shift from home canning and preserving to store bought and manufactured appliances. 

At this point in time the role of the traditional wife was being reinstated. Following the end of the war, women were forced to return back to domestic roles in order to provide space in the workforce for their newly returned husbands. The stay at home, cook, cleaner, and mother position became synonymous with women. The phrase “feminine mystique” was coined by Betty Friedan and became the title of her groundbreaking book. The phrase aimed to describe the idea that women should feel completely fulfilled doing housework and spending time with their husbands and children. If a woman was truly feminine she would want this lifestyle as opposed to having her own career. However, this kind of imposed thinking from society led women to feel trapped in their homes. Many women began to feel uneasy and they longed to return to their careers that they had been forced to give up. Talk of a problem began to arise. 

“The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American women. It was a strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning that women suffered in the middle of the 20th century in the United States. Each suburban wife struggled with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with their children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night – she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question – ‘Is this all?’ (The Feminine Mystique p. 1)

Looking at Blueberries for Sal through Betty Friedan’s lens, Sal's mother seems to be completing her duty as a mother, i.e, the peanut butter sandwiches and the homemaking. However, in today's culture it could be interpreted quite differently. Today the United States does not have any national mandate for paid maternity leave, despite all other developed countries having required maternity leave and subsidized public childcare. These types of laws and ways of thinking limit women's ability to spend time with their children while also maintaining their careers. Yet, in today's culture being a ‘good mother’ is being able to do both. Blueberries for Sal represents an impossible dream for today's mothers, who have a job but should also be bonding with their kids while doing “wholesome” activities, such as picking and canning blueberries. Society praises women who can maintain long term careers while also raising a family and spending enough time with her children. 

The Feminine Mystique outlines the intellectual framework behind second wave feminism, which was taking root at this time, but was not yet fully developed at the time Blueberries for Sal was published. Reading Blueberries for Sal today, in the fourth wave of feminism opens new perspectives. Fourth wave feminism began in the 2010s, marked by the #MeToo movement and focusing on intersectionality and women's empowerment, which piggybacked off of 3rd wave feminism in the 80s, pushing ‘girlboss’ feminism in the workplace. (Pruitt)

With the layered development of feminism we can see that Betty Friedan’s second wave feminism thought that the solution would be to put women in the workplace and stop thinking of them as just mothers all together. Today, with Roe v. Wade being overturned and the wage gap primarily affecting working mothers, we can see that it is far more complicated than this. Women are expected to work and be full-time mothers, which only doubles the burden, rather than freeing them. Looking at Sal's mother in 1948 from where we stand now in 2024 it looks like she is spending time with her child in nature, something that 21st century mothers do not get to do very often. Therefore it seems connected, idyllic and relational. It seems to go against the grain in today's culture, rather than with it, as it did when it was published. 

 In stories from the 50’s, female heroines very rarely had jobs, instead they were portrayed as domestic, happy caregivers (Friedan). Sal's mother is one of these domestic happy caregivers in Blueberries for Sal. She cans the berries, takes her child for a walk, and maintains a docile attitude even when her child gets lost. On one page we see her car, at the edge of the woods. Somebody's money had to buy the car, and only wealthy women could buy their own car in the 40’s, additionally, only “farm women” knew how to drive at the time. (Walsh) Thus, we can infer that there was or is a husband who bought the car. Given that this book was published right after the war, it could be a reference to a family whose father died in the war, or is still overseas. Looking at the book through the lens of the post war 1940’s, it seems like Sal's mother is a classic example to women of what mothers should do, care for the children, preserve, and cook with them. However, looking at the book through a modern lens in 2024, is drastically different. Today, the act of making one's own food and foraging is often a rebellious move against a capitalist culture that pushes processed food in single use containers. Contrastingly, the “plastic push”, or the widespread manufacturing of plastic versions to replace things in the home, had not started to infiltrate homes in the time that the book was written, which we can see in the first image where the items in the cupboards are all paper or cans, and the stove is a traditional wood stove rather than a new appliance. Depending on which lens you read the book through, the mother can look like a “heroine” in the home, or she can look like a single mother reusing her canning equipment, reducing her waste, and foraging for berries, to teach her child experientially in the landscape around them.

Looking closely at some of McCloskey’s illustrations we can see tree stumps in the distance. This seems to allude to the practice of logging that was Maine's main business export throughout the 18th and 19th century. Maine, known as “the pine tree state” has 18 million acres of managed and regrowth forest. Only .05 acres are old growth, meaning forest that has never been logged. (Wood Splitters Direct). The logging industry crashed at the beginning of the 20th century, roughly 40 years before Blueberries for Sal was published. The logged hillside left behind perfect terrain for blueberries. In Maine, wild blueberries grow on the rocky terrain above the treeline, or in places where there is no forest canopy to shade them. Among the rocks and stones, the red branched wild blueberry bushes weather the harsh mountain top winds, and the gravelly soil of “barrens,” or meadows. Wild blueberries are smaller than ones that one might find in a store and they are much sweeter. Blueberry picking is foraging, of a more acceptable kind, one that has lasted generations. Because blueberries grow together, and have adapted well to the alpine climate, they often outcompete most other plants in that zone, apart from wild mountain thyme. (Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry). The relationship of humans and plants, particularly forage plants is long standing and blueberries would have been among the plants cultivated by indigenous people in the Maine area, even though that cultivation might have looked different from a field. What has been called hunting and gathering as if it were a chance operation, was really a kind of light touch farming and nurturing where berry bushes would have been propagated, but not necessarily next to a village.

The fact that McCloskey chose to put blueberries at the center of a story of a mother and her child seems all the more important because berries have been associated with womanhood in Western myths and fairytales. There seem to be multiple echoes in this story to myths from different cultures. In the Greek myth of Persephone, the pomegranate seeds play an integral role in her story. After being tricked by Hades to go down to the underworld, Persephone eats six pomegranate seeds even though if you eat in the underworld you must remain there. Because she eats those seeds she must return to the underworld for six months out of every year. Sal eats the blueberries instead of putting them in her pail, and then she meets the bear and eats berries with her. In both stories eating berries is associated with passing into a different, non-human world. Sal does not, however, have to stay with the bears for an amount of time as punishment. In the myth Persephone's mother, Demeter, pulls her out of the underworld. Sal's mother does not pull her from the bear, Sal finds her own way back to her mother. Even so, we cannot deny the parallels between Persephone's myth and Blueberries for Sal. In some retellings of Persephone's myth, she begins to love Hades and is happy to be in the underworld with him, and to be with her mother the other six months of the year. Little Sal and Little bear are safe with the other mother, and yet they are happy to return to their own mothers. 

Perhaps there are also parallels to be found between Blueberries for Sal and the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. After the death of his wife Eurydice, Orpheus journeys to the underworld in an attempt to ask Hades, the god of the underworld, to return her to earth again. Hades agrees on one condition: Orpheus must not look back at Eurydice as she follows him out of the underworld. If he does, she will be gone forever. Unfortunately temptation gets the better of him and Orpheus turns around. In doing so he breaks the spell and Eurydice is gone forever. In Blueberries for Sal, both children are happily following the mother of the opposite species until each mother turns around and in doing so breaks the spell of trust and connection the children feel in the moment.  The link between Blueberries for Sal  and both Greek myths is a connection of animality, or non-humanness, as a sort of underworld and unknown.         

In mythology, strawberries are connected to the Norse goddess of love, Freyja. Also, a Norse legend exists where the spirits of children enter the afterlife by hiding in strawberries that are taken to heaven by Frigga, Oden’s wife. This may be related to the Native American view that wild berries are “a special gift of Creation” to children and women. Many Native Americans believe that during menstruation and pregnancy a woman’s body becomes very toxic. Since they view berries and their leaves as blood purifiers and builders, laxatives, diuretics, and astringents, they can be used to cleanse the woman’s body during menstruation and after childbirth (Alexander).

Unsurprisingly, bears also play major roles within mythology. McCloskey echoes these stories as well in his choice to have bears play a central part in his story. In Norse mythology the bear is Odin's companion, accompanying the chief god on his many adventures. Moreover, the bear is thought of as a bridge between the gods and humans, and a symbol of the life cycle because of their hibernation patterns. In settlements of Berserkers the bear is thought of as an ancestor even to the Viking warriors. The Norse people attributed the goddess of love and fertility to the brown bear because of the bear's notorious ability to care for her cubs. 

In Ancient Greek mythology, the constellations, Ursa Major and Ursa Minor are a mother bear and her cub (d'Aulaire). Callisto is a beautiful nymph who bore one of Zeus’s sons. Hera, Zeus’ wife found out about their love and turned her into a bear. Callisto's son Arcas (meaning “born by bear") then came upon her in the forest and shot her dead, for this action he too was turned into a bear. Zeus took pity upon both of them and threw their bodies into the sky as constellations, Ursa Major and Ursa Minor. Although this seems like a punishment it could be interpreted as a way Zeus is giving them an eternal life, as mother and child together. The fact that they are turned into bears shows how strong the connection between a mother bear and her cub is. 

Blueberries for Sal follows these ancient story themes of berries, motherhood, and the connection between mother and child. The animal in myth and nature that is most associated with motherhood is the bear, which we can see clearly could be the reason why McCloskey chose these animals to further the story about motherhood in his 20th century narrative. The connections between berries, bears, and womanhood surpass generations and cultures. 

While the characters in Blueberries for Sal mirror old myths from pagan traditions and cultures, the land and the space allude to Judeo-Christian tradition.  In Blueberries for Sal, Blueberry Hill almost seems to mirror the Garden of Eden. Sal is a little girl, to whom the devastations and truths of the world are still a secret. Blueberry Hill offers free food, to nurture Sal and her mother along with the animals that appear in the book. The bears, the birds and the humans are all living in harmony on Blueberry Hill, all being nurtured by the same food that they pick and eat at their whim. However, in Eden Adam and Eve may pick whatever fruits they want except one tree is off limits. In Blueberries for Sal none of the landscape is off limits to the humans and animals. They may take from it as much as they want without any repercussions.

The glaring difference between the Garden of Eden and Blueberry Hill is that all animals are women. There is no equivalent to Adam on Blueberry Hill, only mother and daughter pairs. Blueberry Hill is a place where women are foraging and being self-sufficient. Could one then consider that Blueberry Hill is a woman's Eden? Or is it what Eden should have been like in the first place, a truer version of Eden? The nature of capitalism, of eating animals, of money and greed does not exist in this children's book. Not only is this replicant of a mother and daughter Garden of Eden, one could say that it is also anti-capitalist. A children's book portraying a world to children where family traditions are taught and food grows abundantly enough to feed animals and humans alike is not a capitalist image of greed and suffering, and value determined by want, that we see reflected in the outside world. 

Blueberries for Sal is almost naive in its disregard of the harsh realities the real world is brimming with. There seems to be an innocence that the story holds. The book creates a kind of safe haven for children to find refuge and joy in. As children with our brains still so new and having little experience with different kinds of people (some untrustworthy) it is easy to trust any creature one comes upon and not fear the potential danger of doing so or think that the creature may cause one any harm. In the book it's not the children who get scared of the mothers, it's the mothers who get scared of the children. At the heart of the story is the idea of motherhood and offspring. Even when Sal and Little Bear are following behind the wrong mother they are still following a mother so perhaps they still feel a sense of safety and connection with them. Much research shows that human brains are essentially hardwired to trust others. We truly want to blindly trust everyone; it's in our nature. This is why the maternal figure is so important to us as children. We are susceptible also, to internalizing the opinions of others and the teachings from our parents and guardians about the world around us and how we fit into it. The book is presumably being read to a child by an adult. This creates other layers: ones that signal to a mother perhaps impossible expectations of arcadian lifestyles, and the lack of a role for a male parent in the story leaves a gap in the experience of a father reading the book to his child.  

‘Learning by doing’ or experiential learning programs are increasingly popular in today's society. Montessori teaching, Waldorf teaching, and wilderness education organizations have taken off in recent times. The founder of Waldorf education, Rudolph Steiner famously stated that, "Nature is the source of wonder, and the child should be allowed to experience it without any interference." In Waldorf schools children are immersed in nature from a very young age and the curriculum centers on outdoor activities. Wilderness Education programs like Outward Bound and NOLS are founded on Kurt Hann’s principles. The concept of the four pillars is a key to Hahn's work. The pillars are physical fitness; an expedition that provides challenge and adventure; a project that develops self-reliance and self-discipline; and a sense of compassion through service (Outward Bound). Parents pay for their child to go on these expeditions and be stripped of their luxuries. We think of being in nature as an important milestone, to learn how to cooperate with others, endure hardships, and fend for ourselves. In Blueberries for Sal, Little Sal goes on an expedition that provides challenge and adventure when she goes blueberry picking on the mountain. Through this ‘project’ she can develop self reliance and self discipline. She has to pick the blueberries to have food in the winter, and she has to learn self discipline by not eating them in the present. Obviously there is physical fitness, and we can clearly see Sal’s sense of compassion when she follows the mother bear as if it were her own, not discriminating between species. We argue that Blueberries for Sal is showing this as just a way of life in the 1940s, but now, it fits into the revered educational theory that was just taking off and was regarded as very alternative when the book was published. 

Stories, especially fictional tales that hold real meaning and ideas about humanness and nature, are some of the most effective ways to somewhat unconsciously learn about the ways of the world. In some cultures these stories confirm kinship with non-humans. Like we saw in the Norse and Greek myths, animals and bears have deep connections to humans. While in some other cultures, especially western ones, stories can emphasize humans' differences from animals and nature. In the Brothers Grimm story ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’ for instance, the entire plot is Goldilocks feeling out of place in the bear's home and being frightened away by them in the end because she doesn't belong there. There exist countless western fairytales like this one that enforce this idea that we should draw a harsh boundary between what is human and what is animal. It is refreshing then, that Blueberries for Sal appears to be more like these other myths and legends in its lesson of kinship and the safety Sal feels in the middle of nature with the bears. 

It is interesting to think about how children understand they are different from nature. When we are young we seem to feel a unity with the natural world. We do not understand that animals and humans are distinct from one another and that humans hold a dominant position of power over other animals. We have to be taught that it is okay to eat animal meat. We are taught to hunt and fish. We are taken to visit zoos and point at the caged animals with eagerness. We do not inherently understand or feel this separation from the animal. One of the first ways we begin to understand our role and what it means to truly be a human being is through the consumption of stories. This is why it is so important to read the right stories as a child. A book like Blueberries for Sal, in a subtle way, helps to show the nuances of humans' relationship to animals. 

After deeply examining this book it is interesting to look at the title of the book as there is no mention of bears: the title reads Blueberries for Sal and indeed the story exists for her. We start and end with a picture of Sal and her mother, canning the blueberries in her house. They go out to Blueberry Hill to have an adventure, to take what they need, and then come back. The blueberries, the whole experience, Sal’s friendship with the bears, it is all for Sal, as she is the one who gains from it. Sal and her mother use nature for their benefit, they have this experience but at the end of the day they return to their home. They leave the hill behind them. The only reminder of their adventure are the blueberries sloshing around in the pails they carry.

Returning to the idea of cyclical time and sharing time rather than wasting it; a children's book is inherently cyclical in its nature. We read the book as children, again and again, flipping the pages around and around. For us, the authors, Blueberries for Sal is also cyclical in the way that it shows up in our lives. We loved the story as kids, and now we are studying it again in young adulthood. The book has stayed with us for years. Simply the act of reading a children's book aloud to a child is an act of sharing time, and building a relationship. Our earliest memories of the book are of our mothers reading it aloud to us. In this way we shared space and time with our mothers just like Sal and Little Bear. 

Blueberries for Sal, in its short amount of pages, simple words and seemingly simple imagery, holds a sophisticated charm that still seems to resonate with readers today. Almost eighty years later the ideas about humans and animals, nature and its domestication, women and their maternal roles, the landscape and what it represents, are not only relevant topics but are also vital in teaching young people about humans' place in nature and our relationships to the animals around us. At the time of its publication, Blueberries for Sal was a traditional story. Today, this story takes on new meaning for modern readers. Through the critical lens of feminism, capitalism, ancient myth, our modern relationship with the wilderness, and cyclical time, we can analyze this book very differently than perhaps one could 60 years ago. 

Works Cited

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d'Aulaire, Ingri, and Edgar Parin d'Aulaire. D'Aulaires Book of Greek Myths. Random House Children's Books, 1992.

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Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry. “Maine Natural Areas Program, Natural Community Fact Sheet for Blueberry Barren.” Maine.gov, 2021,  https://www.maine.gov/dacf/mnap/features/communities/blueberrybarren.htm  . Accessed 21 April 2024.

McCloskey, Robert. Blueberries for Sal. Viking Press, 1976.

Milwaukee Public Museum. “Menominee Oral Tradition.” Milwaukee Public Museum, 2022,  https://www.mpm.edu/content/wirp/ICW-138  . Accessed 21 April 2024.

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