Maine Lobster Tales

About the Book

Twenty young lobsters graduating from Lobster School emerge from the depths of the Gulf of Maine. They colonize the “Black Rocks,” three small rocky islands a quarter of a mile off York Harbor Beach. They are very excited, as they are free for the first time from parental supervision. Disaster strikes the following morning when they realize that Lancelot Lobster is missing. He is always ravenous and they assume that, despite all the warnings in school, Lancelot might have been tempted to enter a lobster trap. Their adventures begin: a dramatic rescue, a lobster hunter, a mussel-eating fox, smugglers, shipwrecks, a ghost circus, submarines, lobster boat races, a misunderstanding in a lobster bar, and the heroic rescue of an entrapped whale.

About the Author

F. John McLaughlin was born in England, went to school in Ireland, and was very tired when he got home. After obtaining a medical degree from Trinity College, Dublin, he set off to explore the New World. He settled in New England on a 200 year old farm surrounded by some of the animals featured in his books. His seven books include “Hamish the Haggis,” a tale about a three legged bird from the Highlands of Scotland; “Eoin the Irish Bald Eagle,” an exhausted juvenile bald eagle found in Kerry; “Great Auk Tales,” about a colony of Auks that refused to become extinct; “Puffin Tales,” the adventures of puffins trying to stop puffin hunting; “The Gollymocky Whale,” a tale about James Joyce as a schoolboy trying to save a whale from slaughter; “Barney the Dublin Fox,” tales of foxes being forced to move from the country into the city; and “Frank the Newport Fox,” tales of foxes growing up on Aquidneck Island. All seven books are masterfully illustrated by Gordon D’Arcy, Ireland’s leading naturalist and environmentalist. The author’s target audience is 8-12 year olds with curiosity and a love of nature.