Robert McCloskey, whose interests shifted from drums, oboes and harmonicas to tinkering with motors to – ultimately – picture books that endeared him with young readers, has died. He was 88.

The author of “Make Way for Ducklings,” “Blueberries for Sal” and “One Morning in Maine” died Monday at a home on Deer Isle after a long illness, said Katrina Weidknecht, director of publicity at Penguin Books for Young Readers.

In “One Morning in Maine,” McCloskey immortalized the village of South Brooksville, especially Condon’s Garage and the people who worked there. The late Dick Condon, who owned the garage and was the friendly mechanic depicted in the children’s classic, found himself an instant celebrity. Fans began showing up seeking his autograph.

Condon’s 97-year-old widow, Isabel Condon, autographed some books, too.

“They’d chase you right around,” she recalled Tuesday.

Isabel Condon and her husband became good friends with McCloskey and his wife, Peggy. The Condons would go out to Scott’s Island, a five- minute boat ride from South Brooksville, which the McCloskeys bought and made their home in 1946.

“He and his wife were both wonderful,” Condon said. “We’d gone over for a picnic, and he was there cooking – this was before they had a grill- and he was cooking on an open fire. We ate outside. Those were good times.”

McCloskey was a native of Hamilton, Ohio. His children’s books focused on small-town life, Scott’s Island, as well as Boston, the setting for the story of eight ducklings that made their home in the city’s Public Garden.

“Make Way for Ducklings,” published in 1941, has been translated into many languages and has sold more than 2 million copies. The Massachusetts Legislature voted this year to make it the official state children’s book.

McCloskey came to Boston, where he watched the ducklings waddling through traffic, after winning a scholarship to the Vesper George Art School in 1932.

He married Margaret “Peggy” Durand, the daughter of noted children’s author Ruth Sawyer Durand, in 1940. The couple and daughters Sarah, aka “Sally,” and Jane spent summers on Scott’s Island in Maine, leading to “Blueberries for Sal,” “One Morning In Maine” and “Time of Wonder.”

“Blueberries for Sal” is the story of his wife and daughter encountering a mother bear and cub while picking blueberries on Deer Isle.

Condon’s Garage in South Brooksville is the setting for “One Morning in Maine.” People touched by the story still make the pilgrimage to Condon’s Garage.

“Time of Wonder” features McCloskey and his daughters going to South Brooksville for groceries and gasoline before a big storm.

As a child, McCloskey said, his parents encouraged him to develop his skills as a musician and he played the piano, drums, oboe and harmonica. Later, he became intrigued by motors and gadgets, and fancied himself an inventor.

“I collected old electric motors and bits of wire, old clocks and Mechano sets,” he wrote in an autobiographical sketch. “I built trains and cranes with remote controls, my family’s Christmas trees revolved, lights flashed and buzzers buzzed, fuses blew and sparks flew.”

That all changed, he said, when he started making drawings for the high school annual. That led to the art scholarship in Boston and his first commission to execute bas-reliefs for his hometown municipal building.

He considered his career as an artist to be something of a disappointment, though, before he met with an editor of children’s books in New York. In all, he wrote and illustrated eight children’s picture books.

His first book was “Lentil.” “Make Way for Ducklings” won the Caldecott Medal, awarded annually for the best American children’s picture book, in 1942. In 1958, “Time of Wonder” was awarded the Caldecott Medal.

In 1943 came “Homer Price,” in which he drew upon his childhood roots in the Midwest to write about a young inventor.

He recalled some of his own fanciful inventions, including his failed attempt to make a cotton candy machine. He was having trouble creating a heating element to melt the sugar.

“So I put molasses in there. When I turned it on, the molasses shot out everywhere and formed a wide band that covered the walls, the curtains and the whole front of me,” he told the Bangor Daily News in 1996.

During World War II, the family lived in Alabama, where his wife was a sergeant and drew pictures for Army training manuals.

When his children were growing up, until they were of high school age, he moved his family about in the winters to places as diverse as Switzerland, Italy and Mexico; they would spend summers on Scott’s Island.

“It is just sort of an accident that I write books. I really think up stories in pictures and just fill in between the pictures with a sentence or a paragraph or a few pages of words,” he said.

The Boston Public Library, which is also home to a bronze statue of one of McCloskey’s ducklings, will remember McCloskey with an exhibit that features his sketchbooks filled with pencil studies of ducks.

Meanwhile, at Condon’s Garage in South Brooksville, McCloskey is remembered as a modest, friendly man who usually stopped by each summer. Dick Condon’s son Phil now runs the garage. He expects families will continue to show up with “One Morning in Maine” in hand.

“Summertime they still come in a lot,” Phil Condon said Tuesday. “Everybody wants to have that book signed. That’s been going on for 40 years now.”

McCloskey’s surviving family members, including his two daughters, Sal and Jane, and two grandchildren, will conduct a small, private burial near his home on Scott’s Island. His wife died in 1991.

Associated Press reporters David Sharp and Clarke Canfield, and Bangor Daily News reporter Rich Hewitt and columnist Tom Weber contributed to this story.