Finished reading: In the Great Green Room by Amy Gary 📚

Margaret Wise Brown packed a ton of impact into her tragically short lifetime. This book was a fascinating look into that life. The childhood rituals that provided inspiration for her best work, the romantic partners (male and female) that were her muses, and her struggle to break out of children’s books and into “serious” literature. Ironic, because the fact she wrote some of the most beloved kids’ literature of all time has ensured her reputation will endure. Few things are as sturdy against time as songs and stories told to and by children.

What strikes me about her work is that they aren’t often fantastical, even as they involve anthropomorphic characters. They are instead very rooted in poetry and the present. Goodnight, Moon is like a mindfulness practice for toddlers, and The Runaway Bunny’s themes show up even in modern work like Everything, Everywhere, All at Once. The stories are simple and universal, not concerned with high moral concepts, endowing even the simplest things in the world with love and wonder.

Some stray quotes:

“[Margaret] recently had an article published on how to select the proper book for a child. In it, she encouraged parents to find stories told in simple words about familiar things. The color of the sky, the feel of rain, even tables and telephones might be commonplace to parents, but to children, everything in the world is new and wildly exciting. She believed frightening fairy tales should be avoided for younger children who had yet to learn what is real and what is not. To them, a witch or goblin is as real as a horse or chicken. Older children, depending on their environment, understood the difference between fantasy and reality; they could enjoy those stories without harmful results. It was important for children to find the fun and adventure in folktales and legends since they were based in nature and were often a window into human nature. Word patterns, rhymes, and rhythms were also something she suggested parents look for in a book because they mimicked children’s playful language. Sudden changes and sharp contrasts in sound kept their attention, and it delighted them to hear a cat meow or a train go pocketa-pocketa-pocketa. Stories should be short—no more than ten or fifteen minutes unless the readers involved the children in the stories through questions, which gave them a chance to be part of the narratives, Margaret explained that the purpose of books for young children was not so much to educate them as to echo their laughter and sadness, to capture the reality of the world they loved. Children were sensitive to subtle overtones and rhythms and eager to hear them reflected in stories, songs, and poems. She believed that unless parents encouraged those senses, they became blunted by the age of five. Literature gave them back their own world and kept the keenness of their senses alive.”

“…a teacher was to be a facilitator instead of an instructor. They were to guide and encourage children as they learned. All children … were explorers on the greatest journey of their lives—that of childhood.”

“[Margaret and Michael Strange’s] bond was unrefined, Margaret thought. They got lost in each other. Separation from each other was no longer possible. Michael would take a part of Margaret with her, but part of her would live on in Margaret.”

[The book off with Margaret’s own writing, when she hoped to write a biography of her and Michael’s life together:] “That is the significance of this biography, one who has dared to be gloriously good and gloriously bad in one life. No Limbo for her. Rather let life itself grow living monuments out of trees and living words so that death can never take from our half-lives this radiant living that was lived among us.”

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