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.