She rejected this orthodoxy in favor of stories that better reflected the preoccupations of young children, from sensual pleasures (the shape of an apple) to visceral emotions (fear of the dark). When Brown was emerging as a writer, in the nineteen-thirties, most books for young children drew on classic fables and folktales, providing moral instruction on each page. Many readers now think of Brown titles like “ The Runaway Bunny” as tranquil introductions to storytelling, but they were radical for their time. At the age of forty-two, she died suddenly, in the South of France, after a clot cut off the blood supply to her brain. Her romances were volatile: she was engaged to two men but never married, and she had a decade-long affair with a woman. Her friends called her “mercurial” and “mystical.” Though many of her picture books were populated with cute animals, she wore wolfskin jackets, had a fetish for fur, and hunted rabbits on weekends.

Anointed by Life in 1946 as the “World’s Most Prolific Picture-Book Writer,” she burned through her money as quickly as she earned it, travelling to Europe on ocean liners and spending entire advances on Chrysler convertibles. Bruce Handy, in his 2017 book about children’s literature, “ Wild Things,” confesses that he always imagined the writer Margaret Wise Brown to be a dowdy old lady “with an ample lap”-just like the matronly bunny from her classic story “ Goodnight Moon,” who whispers “hush” as evening darkens a “great green room.” In fact, Brown was a seductive iconoclast with a Katharine Hepburn mane and a compulsion for ignoring the rules.

John Warner's latest book is 'Tough Day for the Army.' Follow him on Twitter. a dark footnote to a book that's provided so much pleasure. His story is tragic, as he reportedly squandered much of the fortune and believed (incorrectly) that Brown was his mother. I may even use it to tuck myself in on occasion.īrown never had children and she left the royalties for her books to a neighbor boy, Albert Clarke. I don't even have children, but I will always own a copy. Seuss, but do we actually enjoy the second or fifth of fiftieth read of 'Yertle the Turtle'? Or do we read those galloping rhymes through gritted teeth?įor me, 'Goodnight Moon' is the opposite of that. Sometimes I think that some things remain popular because they have always been popular, they are a habit untethered from deeper quality or meaning. 'The Runaway Bunny,' also illustrated by Hurd, a story about a little bunny who desires to run away from his mother, is another favorite, continuously in print since 1942.

'Goodnight Moon' is Brown's masterpiece, but she published other children's books that remain in print as enduring classics.

Goodnight moon by margaret wise brown