{"id":9374,"date":"2018-05-23T05:41:30","date_gmt":"2018-05-23T09:41:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=9374"},"modified":"2019-05-17T18:36:30","modified_gmt":"2019-05-17T22:36:30","slug":"happy-birthday-to-margaret-wise-brown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=9374","title":{"rendered":"Happy Birthday, Margaret Wise Brown"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nBorn in 1910, Margaret Wise Brown always wanted to be a writer, but her journey towards the almost unprecedented success she eventually achieved, was not direct (how could it be? If you set out<\/i> to create a children’s classic along the level of Goodnight Moon<\/i>, you couldn’t do it). Brown went into education, and was disheartened by the books for kids that she saw out there in the publishing world, in school libraries. She had other ideas, radical for the time: Maybe there didn’t need to be a Sunday School lesson in a children’s book (“Be good,” “obey your parents”, “don’t tell a lie”, and etc.) Maybe a child learning to read would thrill to a story made up only of observations of what the child looked around and saw in his or her own life. After getting her degree in education, Brown worked as a teacher, and eventually became connected to Harper & Brothers, as an editor of children’s books. From there, she started to write her own.<\/p>\n

She was an interesting and bohemian woman. She wrote other children’s books, some better than others. Runaway Bunny<\/i> is also beloved. Goodnight Moon<\/i>, though, is the show-stopper. (Fans of the book, if you haven’t already, read All of my issues with the Good Night Moon bedroom<\/a>. Tears of laughter streamed down my face the first time I read it.)<\/p>\n

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Goodnight light
\nAnd the red balloon
\nGoodnight bears
\nGoodnight chairs
\nGoodnight kittens
\nAnd goodnight mittens
\nGoodnight clocks
\nAnd goodnight socks
\nGoodnight little house
\nAnd goodnight mouse<\/p>\n

It’s a list of objects with no commentary. It’s very straightforward and almost banal. But they stop being “just” objects, but instead symbolic of the love present in the whole scene. “Bears” “chairs” “kittens” are not banal at all to a child who loves them. The book is a child’s prayer (“And God bless mummy and daddy, and God bless the bears, and God bless my mittens …”) The list is compulsive and spontaneous, the child’s eyes scanning the room, mentioning each object as it comes into view. This is the child’s whole world.<\/p>\n

I am not overstating things when I say that the final three lines give me goosebumps every time I read them (and as an aunt of many small nieces and nephews, I read this book out loud constantly).<\/p>\n

Goodnight stars
\nGoodnight air
\nGoodnight noises everywhere<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Margaret Wise Brown died unexpectedly from an embolism. She was just 42 years old.<\/p>\n

Goodnight Moon<\/i> is one of the most successful children’s books of all time.<\/p>\n

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