Margaret Wise Brown 1910-1952 |
HER GOODNIGHT BOOKS...
She is probably best known for her timeless classic, GOODNIGHT MOON (1947), illustrated by Clement Hurd. Who can forget the rhythmic text that begins:
In the great green room
There was a telephone
And a red balloon
And a picture of --
The cow jumping over the moon!
The whole story takes place in one room, as the baby bunny bids a ritual "goodnight" to all the objects in his room. Have you ever noticed these little details...-the hands on the two clocks progress from 7 PM to 8:10 PM.
-the young mouse and kittens wander around the room. The mouse is present in all pages showing the room.
-the red balloon hanging over the bed disappears in several of the color plates, then reappears at the end.
-the room lighting grows progressively darker.
-the moon rises in the left-hand window.
-the socks disappear from the drying rack.
-the open book in the bookshelf is The Runaway Bunny.
-the book on the nightstand is Goodnight Moon.
-in the painting of the cow jumping over the moon, the mailbox in the right-hand side of the painting occasionally disappears.
-in the painting of the three bears, the painting hanging in the bears' room is a painting of a cow jumping over the moon.
-the painting of the fly-fishing bunny, which appears only in two color plates, appears to be black and white (or otherwise devoid of color). It is very similar to a picture in the book The Runaway Bunny.
-the number of books in the bookshelf changes.
-the pendulum of the bedside clock disappears in the final room scene
-the stripes on the bunny's shirt change
-in the last page the word bunny is gone off the brush
A new (though even older never-before-published!) "goodnight book" by Margaret Wise Brown is THE FATHERS ARE COMING HOME (2010), pictures by talented illustrator Stephen Savage.
It is nighttime and the fathers are coming home...
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