Margaret the Master: Part Two

Children are keen as wild animals and also as timorous.  So you can't be 'too funny' or 'too scary' or 'too many worded.'  All these things are not as easy as they sound for grown people.  There is always the old problem of learning how to write.  We speak naturally, but spend all our lives trying to write naturally.  Margaret Wise Brown

Admittedly, I haven't read every Margaret Wise Brown book, but I did hunt down some of the rare and older ones.  One thing I have come to realize is that she sure is gifted!  Her words, though simple, are something special.  She knows how to organize words.  She's dreamy, and simple, and fun all at the same time and she has a keen imagination that's different and unusual.  Here are some of our favorites:

Goodnight Moon: The "quiet old lady whispering Hush" was supposed to be a human, but Clement Hurd was better at drawing rabbits!  (interesting fact!)

The Runaway Bunny: The idea for this book was taken from a medieval Provencal love ballad: "if you pursue me I shall become a fish in the water and I shall escape you.  If you become a fish I shall become an eel. . ."  In this context, the guy sounds a bit like a stalker to me.  But transferring the concept to a mama chasing her baby bunny, it becomes a sweet story about always being there for your child.

The Little Island: This was my best discovery!  The pictures are amazing.  I can definitely see why Leonard Weisgard won the Caldecott.   

The Color Kitten: Mira loves this one!

Indoor Noisy Book: This is a whole series and I love the words she uses to depict the noises.  The pictures are not that interesting though, printed only in three colors, and it feels old-fashioned.  Still, it gets Mira's thumbs-up.

The Sailor Dog:  This is a favorite from Steve's childhood and it's a super cute tale!

The Friendly Book:  A very fun read aloud and great illustrations. 

Little Donkey Close Your Eyes:  This one can be sung to "Hush Little Baby."

Margaret the Master: Part One

Margaret Wise Brown  (1910-1952)

http://www.margaretwisebrown.com/Her_books.html

A book should try to accomplish something more than just to repeat a child's own experiences.  One would hope rather to make a child laugh or feel clear and happy-headed as he follows a simple rhythm to its logical end, to jog him with the unexpected and comfort him with the familiar; and perhaps to lift him for a few moments from his own problems of shoe laces that won't tie and busy parents and mysterious clock time into the world of a bug or a bear or a bee or a boy living in the timeless world of story.   Margaret Wise Brown

The day after I announced my pregnancy at work, a fellow teacher gave me a copy of Goodnight Moon and The Runaway Bunny, both by Margaret Wise Brown.  I was touched.  It was my first official baby gift.  By the time of Mirette's birth, I had six more copies of Goodnight Moon and three of The Runaway Bunny—most given as gifts, one given to me for free by an early literacy project for new moms. 

When Mirette was three months old, I memorized Goodnight Moon and recited it to her each night before bed for an entire year.  I still know the book by heart (and probably always will).  

Who is this popular and prolific Margaret Wise Brown, her books obviously some rite of passage into motherhood?  I decided to do some research.  I started by slogging through Awakened by the Moon by Leonard S. Marcus.  This book is so slow and choppy that I will save you from having to read it yourself by summing up the interesting parts as best I can:

1.  She loved cats!  She liked to view the world from a cat's point of view.

2.  She didn't feel that comfortable hanging out with Jewish people.  Hmmm?

3.  She loved rabbits, but also hunted them for sport.

4.  She died at the age of 42 from a blood clot.

5.  She was beautiful.

6.  She had a house in Maine and a cottage in New York.

7.  She did a lot to help illustrators and new writers succeed.

8.  She almost worked with Maurice Sendak.

9.  According to this book, she was always looking for older women to mentor her, even falling in love with an older poet named Michael Strange (who did not treat her very well). 

But, by far, number 10 is the most interesting.

10.  Her writing reflects the influences of both Lucy Mitchell and Anne Carroll Moore.  Lucy Mitchell was her teacher and mentor at the Bank Street College of Education, a cutting edge establishment very revered in New York.  Lucy was passionate about the "here and now" storytelling method, believing that playing with and exploring language, rhythms, and the child's world was the key to a good kids' book.  From her point of view, fantasy, dreams, and psychology were not of interest to children. 

Anne Carrol Moore was a children's librarian in New York and she was very against the "here and now" method.  She believed great writing and the re-telling of fantasies and fairy tales was the strength of a good book.  What's more, she had a tremendous amount of power in the literary world and could make or break a book with a single word.  

This dichotomy is so clearly reflected in the book The Little Island.  It's a sweet story about a beautiful island.  Then suddenly a cat is having a philosophical and kind-of weird conversation with the island.  Finally, it goes back to the "here and now" storytelling.  

When reading Margaret Wise Brown's gigantic body of work (over 100 books), it is helpful to remember that she has a very historic place in the writing of children's lit. and a lot of her books, a tad bit boring now, were cutting edge at the time.

BACK TO THE GRIND

Tis the end of a great summer.  My husband Steve goes back to work and I, um, go right on being a mom this year.

Our family has a sweet little bedtime ritual.  I do pajamas, brush teeth, and read three books to Mirette.  We share a family hug.  Then I wait while Mirette picks out a book for Steve to read to her before he puts her to bed.  If she picks out a book he hates, I laugh at him (all in good fun of course).

You see, so many kids' books are really horrible.  The rhymes are boring and trite: Couplets like "Did you go to the butterfly ball?  Let's go together in the fall."  So when there is a good book – one that sings, one that flows, one that has stunning pictures – I notice.

When I am reading a book to Mirette, I always look at the publishing date and read the bios of the author and illustrator aloud.  I think about how old I was when the book was published and sometimes I am instantly transported right back to the age I was when I first read the book.  This concept I shall officially call INP—instant nostalgia picture or prose.

I started to wonder—What does it take to make a quality picture book?  Who are the personalities behind the words and pictures?  Why are some books so fun and others so boring?  Why do some characters jump off the page, becoming dear friends to Mirette, and others slip into anonymity?

I did a little bit of research, read Margaret Wise Brown's autobiography; looked up websites on children's literature; Wikipediaed Ludwig Bemelmans, the author of the Madeline books, began to place holds on books at the library, and came to the realization that the topic is very interesting.

I also noticed that both Steve and I are wordsmiths.  We love words.  We play with words, embrace them, and are silly with them.  We have imparted this love to Mirette.  Our little two year old plays with language and is making up crazy words for everything these days.  (For example, we just went on a carousal ride and Mirette named our horses Lono, Lonu, and Nonu.)

So I decided to write a blog about our year of reading.  How we use language, books that turn us on, illustrators and authors, interesting links and, well, wherever our journey of reading takes us.  I hope that you have fun with us and find some interesting books along the way!