Cunningham's MAINE Coloring Book
Item#: MECB
$7
Illustrated by Linda "Maggie" Cunningham
Edited by Jim C. Cunningham
Annotated by Jim Hunter
©1988 This is a handsome, "gifty" coloring
book.
65 original illustrations by Linda "Maggie" Cunningham
depict Maine life, culture & history. 8.5 x 11 format, black ink on
off-white paper, soft cover, spiral bound. Printed on quality paper with cover
that has a red, deckled edge going down the right side. Some blank pages
interspersed here and there invite children to do their own drawings. There is
also tracing paper interspersed throughout. Some drawings are simple, for the
younger children, while others are more sophisticated, thus accommodating all
ages.
This is not a
naturist book.
MECB has a lot of significance for the Cunninghams
because it was while staying near Norridgewock in 1988 whence Jim would set out
daily on his sales trips to book stores and gift shops that Jim suddenly went
blind while driving to Bangor. He barely managed to make it to the nearest
ophthalmologist, who diagnosed vitreous hemorrhages in both eyes. Jim returned
to Linda and his five children near Norridgewock in the passenger seat of the
cab of a flatbed truck, carrying his station wagon. From that day the lives of the
Cunninghams drastically changed, adjusting to Jim's new disability.
Jim and Linda also published Cunningham's VERMONT Coloring
Book and Cunningham's NEW ENGLAND
FLOWERS Coloring Book. The rights to
the Vermont book were sold to Northshire Book Store in Manchester Center,
Vermont. The FLOWERS book is now out of print. Works in progress that had to be
aborted because of Jim's blindness included a RUSSIAN and a HAWAIAN coloring
book.