Awesome Maine adventures by 10-year-old kid

Imagine a Chicago-born 10-year-old kid, Corey, spending two adventure filled weeks with his grandparents in Cundy’s Harbor, Maine. Fun!

Deborah Meroff came up with a great idea, and her book Maine Has Moxie, published by North Country Press, really captures our state, from a kid’s point of view. Corey lobsters with his grandfather, fishes and catches a shark, hikes part of the Appalachian Trail, sees moose and whales and lots of other critters, and discovers Moxie, although he immediately recognizes that it tastes awful.

I wouldn’t have the heart to tell him that Moxie is not made in Maine, although some claim it was first created here. But of course Corey loved the Moxie festival in Lisbon.

Of Corey’s many adventures, I particularly enjoyed his time aboard his grandfather’s lobster boat, and their many visits to historical places in Maine. I even learned some things from those visits. Corey’s grandfather gave him a scrapbook and after each adventure the boy’s drawings captured his excitement and new knowledge.

There’s a good reason Meroff was able to capture our state so well, because she was born in Bath. Yup, she’s a Mainer. And even though her family lived in other states as she grew up, they always returned to Maine for summer holidays. And she fell in love with our state.

She has worked in Maine and elsewhere as a librarian, edited a magazine in Pennsylvania, and even served as a journalist press officer on board OM ships, a Christian charity which takes book fairs to countries worldwide. Boy that sounds like fun.

For 26 years beginning in 1988, she worked in OM’s international communications office, traveling to over 100 countries and writing lots of articles and books. But after traveling the world she retired to enjoy writing from her lakeside cottage in Sabbatus, Maine. Great choice Deborah!

George Smith

About George Smith

George stepped down at the end of 2010 after 18 years as the executive director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine to write full time. He writes a weekly editorial page column in the Kennebec Journal and Waterville Morning Sentinel, a weekly travel column in those same newspapers (with his wife Linda), monthly columns in The Maine Sportsman magazine, two outdoor news blogs (one on his website, georgesmithmaine.com, and one on the website of the Bangor Daily News), and special columns for many publications and newsletters. Islandport Press published a book of George's favorite columns, "A Life Lived Outdoors" in 2014. In 2014, George also won a Maine Press Association award for writing the state's bet sports blog. In 2016, Down East Books published George's book, Maine Sporting Camps, and Islandport Press published George and his wife Linda's travel book, Take It From ME, about their favorite Maine inns and restaurants.