Goodnight Brown

 Years upon years ago (OK, roughly a dozen), my husband and I were looking for our first home.  We were expecting our third child (now twelve-year-old Margaret), and our young family was bursting out of the one-bedroom apartment that had made such a perfect honeymoon suite.  All through the weary winter, we scoured real estate ads and pounded the pavement, hoping to find a house in time for the new baby's birth.

Then one day, we toured a certain tidy colonial on a postage-stamp lot in a nice neighborhood.  The house had nothing in particular to recommend it--it was neither beautiful, nor ugly--and, to tell the truth, I was not especially interested in it.  That is until we entered the last of three bedrooms.  The walls were an appalling shade of crayon green--you could not even pretend that it was something pretty like Kelly or Chartreuse--and the floors were a deep dark red.  Anyone else would have backed quietly down the stairs never to return again, but I--young mother that I was--could only stand on the threshold to that room and sigh, "In the great green room, there was a telephone and a red balloon and a picture of the cow jumping over the moon."

Suddenly, my dreams of a pink frilly bedroom for the girls departed with a "goodnight room," and I imagined myself in a rocking chair, the quiet (young) lady whispering hush.  The room we would have and all its appointments were already etched in my mind from a thousand bedtime readings--bears, chairs, kittens, mittens, clocks, socks, house, mouse.  In less than a week's time we were sitting at our lawyer's kitchen getting ready to sign a contract, not on a house really, but on our own personal setting of Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown.  

I do not even remember a single other thing about that house we almost bought in back in 1997.  Just as we were about to sign on the dotted line, I felt a wave of indecisiveness.  Our lawyer sent my young husband and me to a diner to talk it over, and two cups of coffee later, we phoned him to say we would keep looking.  My husband promised that if ever we did find a house we wanted to buy, he would give me carte blanche to paint the girls' bedroom in any garish colors I liked.

It is funny to think how nearly that simple picture book came to charting one of the earliest courses in our lives. Literature has a way of affecting us deeply, but perhaps not so demonstrably as that.  

Goodnight Moon was not a book I ever recall reading as a child, and, to be honest, the first time I thumbed through it, I could not for the life of me understand why it had such a following.  But anyone who has ever read the book to a child knows that Goodnight Moon is like a battered lamp lying forgotten in a cave.  It goes unnoticed until some childish Aladdin sits by your side, rubbing the lamp by way of his rapt expression as you read, "Good night light and the red balloon"--words that seem mundane without him there to show you otherwise.

 Not far from where we live on Long Island, there is a cozy little restaurant with paneled walls and horse finials standing guard over each booth.  Until becoming a regular there and reading a newspaper feature framed on the wall, I did not know that Margaret Wise Brown was a Long Islander and that she enjoyed fox hunting on foot--or, more accurately rabbit hunting--not far from where we live.  Sometimes, I like to imagine the rolling hills, the blare of horns, and the yip of dogs so different from Long Island today.  (Might some hidden hollow of rabbit kits sniffed out by her eager hounds have inspired "the great green room"?)  Margaret Wise Brown looks radiant in the photo, and I love that her two male companions are drinking tea from cups and saucers.  Perhaps one of them was her fiance, a Rockefeller no less.

As you can see from the blurb about her life, she died tragically and young--actually at the very same age I am now.  She never did get to marry that fiance--or see the books she had written brought to life by the rapt expression of a child of her own.  From now on, when we read her book--especially when we read it before bed--we will say a prayer that she rests in peace.

 

Comments

[monica klepac]

oh, i love that book so much. it really is poetry, isnt it? i always thought an art museum or a childrens museum should have an interactive "great green room" that people could come and walk around in. complete with rocker and bed and with garrison keillors voice reading goodnight moon through the speakers. i would spend a lot of time in there

[sarah]

Lovely story. I've never read that book, but I have heard of it. Did your daughters get their green bedroom?

[Alice Gunther]

No, as a matter of fact, they never did!  The house we actually bought had dusty rose walls in the girls room, so we left it as is.

[Jennifer]

It's funny how your describe your first reaction to the book. I was puzzled by its popularity as well. But now I love the simple, quiet words. There's something very special about that book.

[Carole in Wales]

Alice, I think that I would have had the same reaction to the house. It is amazing how our lives are influenced by something as simple as a book for children! Thank you for sharing this wonderful memory.

[Jennifer in TX]

That book has special memories for me as a new mother, as well, Alice. I need to find one of our battered copies (for we have more than one, of course) and go read it to my youngest little man tonight...

[Eileen Smithdeal]

I felt the same way about the book(what's all the fuss?) when we received a gift copy for our oldest. It's amazing how quickly it became a favorite. My son (16) actually wanted his copy for his own little collection...It's missing both covers and is quite tattered,but weel-loved. Thanks for posting this-it was a fun thing to read this morning.

[Helen (MaryVitamin)]

Alice, I always associate Margaret Wise Brown's book with you. I remember visiting you in your apartment in Astoria when our eldest daughters were only 2. You mentioned that the first time you read the book you didn't understand why it was considered a classic. It was only upon further readings that its rhythms and beauty touched you. You made me look at this book in a different way. I'm not surprised that 14 years later you would be able to write such a wonderful tribute to this cherished children's book.

[Soutenus]

Great post -- I got goose bumps because I totally "got it" . . . and maybe because we are expecting our very first grand baby and I will again be able to read that book to a wee one!