Wow, I loved every bit of this. Especially the Arrested Development reference. But also the spread with goodnight nobody and mush -- I had never thought about how it is life and death right next to each other. Which is a piece that helped me understand the whole mouse and cat B plot. It is interesting the mouse is specified as "young" because it connects the mouse with the young bunny, and both are simultaneously confronting death. For the mouse, it is the cats. For the bunny, it is sleep. And it is so fascinating that the mouse stays awake -- living another day -- while the bunny goes to sleep. Another reflection of life and death on the same spread! Anyway, thanks for this refreshing experience of a timeless (literally and figuratively) classic!
I want this conversation to last and last. I started reading Goodnight Moon to my babies, but eventually I just closed my eyes and recited it in some slightly delirious incantation, night after night. Maybe I was the lady whispering hush? Or was I the moon? Or the socks? Wholly in agreement that it perfectly (or imperfectly by design) depicts that disoriented state between wake and sleep (or life and death, or consciousness and unconsciousness) -- where things loom large and fade away without hierarchical importance or attached meaning. MWB and CH captured a dream. So did you guys.
I relate to this so much, Liz, the incanting, being in the book in that weird shadow-state that is reading this book at bedtime, and, of course, whispering hush (in increasingly unhushed tones). Incanting it because this book is, of course, a magic trick, what with all those life and death bits and how it wraps around everyone while it's being read. MWB could create that spell with words like no one else could.
The moon rising always got me, and this dream-like sense that it would somehow rise right out of the book and into the room where it's being read.
Reading this substack always reminds me of how incredibly versatile and beautiful the picture book is and truly haunts my thoughts for days each time you post. It's also reignited my excitement about Margaret Wise Brown's life (and made me check out our copy of The Important Thing About Margaret Wise Brown to read to my partner so she could be as thrilled as I was). I know there are several biographies about her out there and I'd love to pick one up and learn more-- is there one that you all (or any other reader!) would recommend?
I enjoyed Anna Holmes's profile of MWB for the New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/02/07/the-radical-woman-behind-goodnight-moon. The two big biographies are Leonard Marcus's Awakened by the Moon and Amy Gary's In the Great Green Room. They're very different! I might recommend sampling a page from each and go with whichever is more to your taste.
That profile is actually one of the things that got me interested in her in the first place! Thank you for sharing your thoughts, I'll take a look at Marcus and Gary's works as well and see what I prefer.
For me, this is one of the few picture books that has both a plot and a story. The plot is a book listing off all these things in the room, a rhythmic lullaby. But the story, the internal arc, is a bunny who doesn’t want to go to bed.
I always imagined the parts in quotes at the end is the bunny saying goodnight out loud. Bunny is grasping at straws, saying good night nothing, goodnight air, etc. before capitulating to sleep.
Longtime LAPB reader/first time commenter/long time bedtime basket case. Loving thinking about the philosophy of nobody/mush - death/life. “Goodnight nobody” was the ultimate comfort for me as a kid. I had a very specific fear that Captain Hook was under my bed (did he ever hide under a bed? Why did I think that?). When I was especially terrified, my mom would lift the dust ruffle and have me look under the bed. Seeing nothing, she’d have me say “Goodnight nobody.” That page turn is a sigh of relief. No one is there, especially that scary thing you think is there. (But yes, the mush you brought into your bedroom at breakfast? That’s still there.)
Such a good discussion, and I loved listening in on it!
For me, what kills me is the scaling. Especially the rabbits as compared to the cats and mouse; how the rabbits are at human scale it seems...but *only* the rabbits. And that just really gives me heebie-jeebies because I don't know if the rabbits are oversized or the cat and mice are crazy undersized in this world (like, when the rabbits aren't hunting, they are breeding their version of teacup-sized pets). And then, too, the tiger rug roughly the size of the old lady. So either tigers are smaller in this universe, or rabbits not only hunt tigers, but one of them skinned a *young* tiger.
And if that's not ENOUGH (along with everything, everything you've already pointed out), you get to the end spread, and the dollhouse windows, etc., that you ("you" meaning me, here) assumed were just yellow and realize, no, they aren't 'yellow,' the dollhouse is LIT UP. Was it always lit? Or...only now? And because we've already established that the rules of this universe are...let's say, flexible...my mind wanders to, "WHO/WHAT lives in that doll house, such that there is now a light turned on at night?" And...in my mind, I just feel like people live in there because that would be the scariest thing I could imagine, and anything goes in this Twilight Zone bunny world.
The windows, the fireplace and the carpet (especially at the end) all line up in a screaming face. It doesn't help to fall asleep either. Or maybe the room is an inside of a head and only what's outside the window is real?
I loved this conversation - every comment Jon & Mac made brought back memories of every reaction I always had on every page(Where did those socks go?)
and this book always lurks in the background when you're in school trying to create a childrens' book and it breaks every rule they teach you and yet, here it has stayed for a hundred years, who can argue with Goodnight Moon???! #tangenting #color consistency #page composition
I still feel in my own work that there must be answers to a childs' questions; "see that mouse shows up again here and here he's hiding in the tree but there's some master plan and logic we don't know about but it's ALL PLANNED OUT. And MWB god bless her didn't seem to give a crap about that. Here's a poem, its rhythm, sure there are gaps in logic but... just when you think it was just primitive and unconscious "mistakes" ----- GOODNIGHT NOBODY
they knew what they were doing.
And then you grow up and have kids and you see how they react to it and you can't argue with it. I agree with Olivia, the story, the feeling kids respond to, is that dreamy state where you don't want to go to sleep and it doesn't have to make sense logically ...the language is the lullaby easing the transition. I didn't know MWB was a poet but it makes sense, like poems or songs you might memorize without understanding the exact literal meaning yet you like repeating them, singing them over and over.
How naive am I to think with each entry that surely Mac and Jon cannot top THAT?! And yet they do. . . So much to delight and revel in here but essentially grateful that I unpacked all this as an adult- and not as a child. And why do I now keep visualizing Norma Bates in that rocking chair instead of that sweet bunny knitting?
One of my favorite parts of training new children’s booksellers is making them sit down and read the books that were read to them as children before proceeding to blow their minds with how much cool stuff is in them. I think that’s why I love this substack so much because I get to be on the opposite side of that conversation again. Thanks for talking about Goodnight Moon! I have a whole bunch of cool new stuff to add when I talk about it in training.
I am an American novelist and I love parties but even more than I love parties I love this substack and the two of you. <3
Wow, I loved every bit of this. Especially the Arrested Development reference. But also the spread with goodnight nobody and mush -- I had never thought about how it is life and death right next to each other. Which is a piece that helped me understand the whole mouse and cat B plot. It is interesting the mouse is specified as "young" because it connects the mouse with the young bunny, and both are simultaneously confronting death. For the mouse, it is the cats. For the bunny, it is sleep. And it is so fascinating that the mouse stays awake -- living another day -- while the bunny goes to sleep. Another reflection of life and death on the same spread! Anyway, thanks for this refreshing experience of a timeless (literally and figuratively) classic!
Tangenting! I didn't know there was a word for it.
I want this conversation to last and last. I started reading Goodnight Moon to my babies, but eventually I just closed my eyes and recited it in some slightly delirious incantation, night after night. Maybe I was the lady whispering hush? Or was I the moon? Or the socks? Wholly in agreement that it perfectly (or imperfectly by design) depicts that disoriented state between wake and sleep (or life and death, or consciousness and unconsciousness) -- where things loom large and fade away without hierarchical importance or attached meaning. MWB and CH captured a dream. So did you guys.
I relate to this so much, Liz, the incanting, being in the book in that weird shadow-state that is reading this book at bedtime, and, of course, whispering hush (in increasingly unhushed tones). Incanting it because this book is, of course, a magic trick, what with all those life and death bits and how it wraps around everyone while it's being read. MWB could create that spell with words like no one else could.
The moon rising always got me, and this dream-like sense that it would somehow rise right out of the book and into the room where it's being read.
I could barely breathe reading this, it was SO GOOD.
Reading this substack always reminds me of how incredibly versatile and beautiful the picture book is and truly haunts my thoughts for days each time you post. It's also reignited my excitement about Margaret Wise Brown's life (and made me check out our copy of The Important Thing About Margaret Wise Brown to read to my partner so she could be as thrilled as I was). I know there are several biographies about her out there and I'd love to pick one up and learn more-- is there one that you all (or any other reader!) would recommend?
I enjoyed Anna Holmes's profile of MWB for the New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/02/07/the-radical-woman-behind-goodnight-moon. The two big biographies are Leonard Marcus's Awakened by the Moon and Amy Gary's In the Great Green Room. They're very different! I might recommend sampling a page from each and go with whichever is more to your taste.
That profile is actually one of the things that got me interested in her in the first place! Thank you for sharing your thoughts, I'll take a look at Marcus and Gary's works as well and see what I prefer.
For me, this is one of the few picture books that has both a plot and a story. The plot is a book listing off all these things in the room, a rhythmic lullaby. But the story, the internal arc, is a bunny who doesn’t want to go to bed.
I always imagined the parts in quotes at the end is the bunny saying goodnight out loud. Bunny is grasping at straws, saying good night nothing, goodnight air, etc. before capitulating to sleep.
Longtime LAPB reader/first time commenter/long time bedtime basket case. Loving thinking about the philosophy of nobody/mush - death/life. “Goodnight nobody” was the ultimate comfort for me as a kid. I had a very specific fear that Captain Hook was under my bed (did he ever hide under a bed? Why did I think that?). When I was especially terrified, my mom would lift the dust ruffle and have me look under the bed. Seeing nothing, she’d have me say “Goodnight nobody.” That page turn is a sigh of relief. No one is there, especially that scary thing you think is there. (But yes, the mush you brought into your bedroom at breakfast? That’s still there.)
But why are the curtains a different color on the cover? Are we in a separate reality from whatever room is on the cover?
I've always noticed that too!
Such a good discussion, and I loved listening in on it!
For me, what kills me is the scaling. Especially the rabbits as compared to the cats and mouse; how the rabbits are at human scale it seems...but *only* the rabbits. And that just really gives me heebie-jeebies because I don't know if the rabbits are oversized or the cat and mice are crazy undersized in this world (like, when the rabbits aren't hunting, they are breeding their version of teacup-sized pets). And then, too, the tiger rug roughly the size of the old lady. So either tigers are smaller in this universe, or rabbits not only hunt tigers, but one of them skinned a *young* tiger.
And if that's not ENOUGH (along with everything, everything you've already pointed out), you get to the end spread, and the dollhouse windows, etc., that you ("you" meaning me, here) assumed were just yellow and realize, no, they aren't 'yellow,' the dollhouse is LIT UP. Was it always lit? Or...only now? And because we've already established that the rules of this universe are...let's say, flexible...my mind wanders to, "WHO/WHAT lives in that doll house, such that there is now a light turned on at night?" And...in my mind, I just feel like people live in there because that would be the scariest thing I could imagine, and anything goes in this Twilight Zone bunny world.
Nighty-night and sweet dreams!
The windows, the fireplace and the carpet (especially at the end) all line up in a screaming face. It doesn't help to fall asleep either. Or maybe the room is an inside of a head and only what's outside the window is real?
I learned what muntin means and also the word that occurs when you add a -g at the end — thank you, internet search results. 😳
Unrelated: I am now officially on a mission to seek out and celebrate the most mercenary of page turns.
As always, thank you Mac and Jon! 👏🏻
I loved this conversation - every comment Jon & Mac made brought back memories of every reaction I always had on every page(Where did those socks go?)
and this book always lurks in the background when you're in school trying to create a childrens' book and it breaks every rule they teach you and yet, here it has stayed for a hundred years, who can argue with Goodnight Moon???! #tangenting #color consistency #page composition
I still feel in my own work that there must be answers to a childs' questions; "see that mouse shows up again here and here he's hiding in the tree but there's some master plan and logic we don't know about but it's ALL PLANNED OUT. And MWB god bless her didn't seem to give a crap about that. Here's a poem, its rhythm, sure there are gaps in logic but... just when you think it was just primitive and unconscious "mistakes" ----- GOODNIGHT NOBODY
they knew what they were doing.
And then you grow up and have kids and you see how they react to it and you can't argue with it. I agree with Olivia, the story, the feeling kids respond to, is that dreamy state where you don't want to go to sleep and it doesn't have to make sense logically ...the language is the lullaby easing the transition. I didn't know MWB was a poet but it makes sense, like poems or songs you might memorize without understanding the exact literal meaning yet you like repeating them, singing them over and over.
How naive am I to think with each entry that surely Mac and Jon cannot top THAT?! And yet they do. . . So much to delight and revel in here but essentially grateful that I unpacked all this as an adult- and not as a child. And why do I now keep visualizing Norma Bates in that rocking chair instead of that sweet bunny knitting?
One of my favorite parts of training new children’s booksellers is making them sit down and read the books that were read to them as children before proceeding to blow their minds with how much cool stuff is in them. I think that’s why I love this substack so much because I get to be on the opposite side of that conversation again. Thanks for talking about Goodnight Moon! I have a whole bunch of cool new stuff to add when I talk about it in training.
Ok, this is your best post yet!