It was Labor Day in Boston and the bronze ducklings in the city’s Public Garden were each wearing a fluffy autumnal scarf. Nobody seems quite sure who dresses them, but at various points they have worn party hats, festive knitwear and hot pink. When the Tartan Army arrived for the World Cup earlier this year, Mrs. Mallard and her ducklings – Jack, Kack, Lack, Mack, Nack, Ouack, Pack and Quack – were forced to endure miniature traffic cones and saltires.

The sculpture was created by Nancy Schön in 1987 to celebrate Robert McCloskey’s 1941 children’s book, Make Way for Ducklings. In 1990, former Soviet first lady Raisa Gorbachev visited Boston and admired the statue. So a separate set, commissioned in the name of diplomacy by Barbara Bush in 1991, sits in Novodevichy Park in Moscow.

The book tells the story of a pair of mallards searching for a safe place to raise their family, faithfully mapping the geography of Boston Public Garden: the island, the swan boats and the cobblestones of Beacon Hill. And while the ducks are cute, it sure makes Boston look wonderful, too. “It’s quite a story,” an elderly Bostonian woman told me, as we watched children clamber over the ducklings.

Planes landing at Logan, ferries crossing the river, fire engines and cars zooming back and forth

Planes landing at Logan, ferries crossing the river, fire engines and cars zooming back and forth

I had never visited Boston but felt I already knew it a little through reading this story, among others, when I was younger. McCloskey’s classic is hardly unique in its setting; Boston’s cityscape helped inspire several iconic works, including H.A. and Margret Rey’s Curious George and Richard Scarry’s Busytown series.

I arrived wanting to understand what it was about the city that made the children’s literary scene so vibrant. It quickly became obvious, because walking through the........

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