Chris Van Dusen
Van Dusen has gotten to see his characters and settings come to life in ways he’d never imagined, at a new exhibit at the Maine Maritime Museum in Bath. “Upon That Isle in Maine: The Story & Works of Chris Van Dusen” opened on Feb. 8 and runs through March 29, 2026.
“Each time I’ve seen it, it just kind of blows me away,” said Van Dusen, 64. “I thought they just wanted to show some of my pictures, and then I came down and saw everything they’ve done.”
“It’s always important for us to show what people think of the Maine coast, and why. We’ve had all these amazing artists and authors, creating so many iconic children’s stories, and in the last 25 years Chris has really been leading the charge with that,” said Timm.
Just inside the entrance is a re-creation of Van Dusen’s home studio, with art supplies, a video of Van Dusen explaining how he works, sketches and toys he uses as models while drawing. There’s a big toy truck, for example, that he used as the model for the title vehicle in “Big Truck, Little Island.”
That book is about an incident on Vinalhaven in 2009, when a truck carrying wind turbine equipment slipped off the pavement, blocking summertime traffic on the islands’ only north-south road. But instead of just sitting there, fuming about the appointments or ferries they were going to miss, the islanders started swapping cars. People heading north took cars stuck north of the truck, and visa versa.
Throughout the exhibit there is, indeed, art by Van Dusen on the wall, with information about his process and about the Maine coast. In the re-created studio area, there’s a cabinet that contains writing and drawings that help illustrate the making of each book. There are also videos and audio elements throughout, so people can see and hear Van Dusen.
“We intentionally wanted a mix of elements. It’s not just a children’s exhibit, or an exhibit about Chris’s art,” said Timm. “Parents and kids are reading these books together, so it’s a shared experience.”
One Morning in Maine
Van Dusen was born in Maine and spent his early childhood in Raymond, before his family moved to central Massachusetts. But he came back to his grandparents’ house on Panther Pond in Raymond often. He remembers being inspired early on by Maine children’s authors. His very favorite book growing up – and still one of his favorites – is “One Morning in Maine” by McCloskey.
“I remember my mom reading that to me and I would just get lost in the illustrations, the amount of detail and the sense of space and place,” said Van Dusen. “I remember wanting to live in those pages. I wanted to live in that world, it was just so magical.”
Van Dusen was also a fan of McCloskey’s “Burt Dow, Deep-Water Man.” There’s a scene in “Down to the Sea with Mr. Magee” that pays homage to Burt Dow, Van Dusen said, with Mr. Magee waving to whales, as Burt Dow does.
Van Dusen studied art at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, worked as an assistant art director at a now-defunct magazine for teens based in Massachusetts, and took a job as an artist at a Midcoast greeting card company around 1985. The company later moved to New Jersey, but Van Dusen and his wife, Lori, decided to stay in Camden.
Van Dusen did illustrations and cartoons, including in national kids’ magazines and newspapers like The New York Times and Wall Street Journal, before starting to think about children’s books. One day, he says, he happened to get a strange image in his head, of a man and his dog in a boat that was stuck in a treetop. How did the man get there, he wondered?
That image became the basis of his first children’s book, “Down to the Sea with Mr. Magee,” released in 2000. Van Dusen has written and illustrated 12 books of his own, and done illustrations for 18 books by other writers.
Other books of his include “A Camping Spree with Mr. Magee” and “Learning to Ski with Mr. Magee.” He’s also written a series of “If I Built” books in which the child/narrator lets his imagination run wild: “If I Built a Car,” “If I Built a House” and “If I Built a School.” “If I Built a Car” won the 2006 E.B. White Read-Aloud Award presented by the Association of Booksellers for Children.
Van Dusen says he likes that the exhibit based on his work has hands-on things for kids but also explains the process, so they can get an idea of how the books they like to read get made.
“That’s something I try to talk about, too, when I visit schools, how much work goes into it, refining the sketches, the editing,” said Van Dusen. “I think they made this fun, while also helping people learn about how the books are created.”