Margaret Wise Brown (1910–1952)
Author of Goodnight Moon
About the Author
Margaret Wise Brown was born on May 10, 1910 in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, New York, to Robert Brown, a Vice President at American Manufacturing Company and Maud Brown, a housewife. She attended school in Lausanne, Switzerland for three years, before attending Dana Hall in Wellesley, Massachusetts for show more two years. In 1928, she began taking classes at Hollis College in Virginia. In 1935, Brown began working at the Bank Street Cooperative School for student teachers. Two years later, her writing career took off with the publication of "When the Wind Blows." Over the course of fourteen years, Brown wrote over one hundred picture books for children. Some of her best known titles include Goodnight Moon, Big Red Barn and Runaway Bunny. Margaret Wise Brown died on November 13, 1952 of an embolism following an operation in Nice, France. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Disambiguation Notice:
Golden MacDonald, Juniper Sage, Timothy Hay, and Kaintuck Brown are pen names of Margaret Wise Brown.
Series
Works by Margaret Wise Brown
Goodnight Moon Classic Library: Contains Goodnight Moon, The Runaway Bunny, and My World (2006) 124 copies, 2 reviews
The Little Golden Book Library 4 Book Cased Set Golden Favorites * Bedtime Stories * Our Wonderful World * Fairy Tales and Rhymes (1969) 11 copies
A Baby's Gift, Packaging May Vary 6 copies
Black and white 3 copies
The Big Fur Secret 3 copies
The Hidden House 2 copies
The Salor dog 2 copies
the little fireman / I WANT TO FLY 2 copies
The bad little duckhunter 2 copies
The Sailor Dog, 1981 1 copy
A CHILD'S GOODNIGHT BOOK 1 copy
Pussys Weihnachtsfest 1 copy
Slaap zacht Kleintje 1 copy
Big Red Hen 1 copy
Little Bugs 1 copy
Big Red Barn Activities 1 copy
The Sleepy Book 1 copy
Bonne Nuit ! (Un livre d'or) 1 copy
Hyvä yötä, pikku karhu 1 copy
The streamlined pig 1 copy
Willie's walk to grandmama 1 copy
The poodle and the sheep 1 copy
The Peppermint family 1 copy
They all saw it 1 copy
The children's year 1 copy
The Noisy Bird Book 1 copy
Big dog, little dog 1 copy
Pussycat's Christmas 1 copy
The Color Kitchen 1 copy
The Little Scarecrow Boy 1 copy
Tre små bjørne 1 copy
Tel tot 10 met muis 1 copy
Oi, mikä talo! 1 copy
Springtime Stories 1 copy
The Quiet 1 copy
Associated Works
The 20th-Century Children's Book Treasury: Picture Books and Stories to Read Aloud (1998) — Contributor — 1,828 copies, 14 reviews
The Illustrated Treasury of Children's Literature, Volumes 1-2 (1955) — Contributor — 523 copies, 4 reviews
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Other names
- MacDonald, Golden
Sage, Juniper
Brown, Kaintuck
Hay, Timothy - Birthdate
- 1910-05-23
- Date of death
- 1952-11-13
- Gender
- female
- Education
- Hollins College (BA | English)
Dana Hall School, Wellesley, MA
The Kew Forest School
Chateau Brilliantmont, Lausanne (boarding school) - Occupations
- children's book author
teacher
editor
art student - Relationships
- Oelrichs, Blanche (pen name - Strange, Michael) (partner)
Brown, Benjamin Gratz (grandfather) - Short biography
- Margaret Wise Brown wrote hundreds of books and stories before she died at the age of 42 after surgery for a burst appendix. She published under her own name as well as under several pen names including Timothy Hay, Golden MacDonald, Juniper Sage, and Kaintuck Brown. According to a Web site dedicated to her, before Margaret began writing books for children, fairytales and fables dominated the world of illustrated stories. But Margaret, or Brownie, as her friends called her, wrote with the then "new" idea that children would rather read about their own lives instead. Many of her books are considered classics of the genre.
- Cause of death
- embolism
complications from surgery (for an ovarian cyst) - Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Brooklyn, New York, New York, USA
- Places of residence
- Brooklyn, New York, New York, USA
- Place of death
- Nice, Alpes-Maritimes, France
- Burial location
- cremated
- Map Location
- New York, USA
- Disambiguation notice
- Golden MacDonald, Juniper Sage, Timothy Hay, and Kaintuck Brown are pen names of Margaret Wise Brown.
Members
Reviews
Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown is a classic bedtime story that uses a short plot and lyrical language to show themes of comfort, routine, and emotional security. The book’s central idea revolves around transition, the shift from wakefulness to sleep, which shows a familiar experience for young children. Rather than character growth, the text highlights emotional regulation through repetition and ritual.
Brown’s use of repetition, particularly the repeated phrase “goodnight,” show more creates a calming pattern that expresses predictability. The dimming of the drawings shows the passage of time, supporting the narrative’s soothing tone. The sparse language and controlled pacing are intentional choices that support the book’s purpose. As a bedtime genre text, Goodnight Moon explains conventions by prioritizing surroundings over action. For children, the book validates nighttime routines and creates a sense of safety. Personally, its quiet consistency shows how simplicity can be a powerful literary tool. show less
Brown’s use of repetition, particularly the repeated phrase “goodnight,” show more creates a calming pattern that expresses predictability. The dimming of the drawings shows the passage of time, supporting the narrative’s soothing tone. The sparse language and controlled pacing are intentional choices that support the book’s purpose. As a bedtime genre text, Goodnight Moon explains conventions by prioritizing surroundings over action. For children, the book validates nighttime routines and creates a sense of safety. Personally, its quiet consistency shows how simplicity can be a powerful literary tool. show less
I love this book, but if you think about it, it's actually kind of alarming. When you think about it, there is something disturbing about the pictures. Has anyone else noticed the following odd things in the child bunny's bedroom:a. a fireplaceb. a telephonec. an expensive clockd. a bookshelf full of hardbound books of various editionsWho puts a telephone in a child's bedroom? It would just wake him up. Who gives a child a room this large? With a fireplace? With burning logs? And two show more clocks?There's another clue: the "quiet old lady ... whispering hush." What I get out of this setup is that she is the child's grandmother. And she is putting up the child bunny in a bedroom meant for adults because those adults are not there. The parents are not there. And the child is terrified of everything. "Goodnight nobody... goodnight noises everywhere."The child bunny isn't just visiting. The room has been turned into a child's bedroom. There are now paintings of the cow jumping over the moon and the three little bears. There's a red balloon and a doll's house (with, curiously, the lights on inside.)I don't think the parents are coming back.Yikes.Of course, none of this will occur to the four year old you're reading it to, so go for it. show less
Another beautiful book by Margaret Wise Brown. There are earlier illustrated editions, but I was able to read the pictured version with illustrations by Christian Robinson. Initially it was Robinson's beautiful, vibrant, and engaging illustrations that called to me from a busy library shelf. Bright colors and a diverse collection of children depict the bittersweet tale of a bird's passing.
While playing in an urban park, children come upon a recently dead bird. Some may find the honest show more descriptions of the bird disturbing, "That was the way animals got when they had been dead for some time -- cold dead and stone still with no heart beating." I would hesitate to introduce this book unless there had been some discussion beforehand of death and what that means. To me there is beauty in the way the children enact the ritual of grieving and honoring the life of the bird.
They take great care to prepare a resting place, sing to the bird, and then perhaps most beautifully of all, go back to their play, returning only until they forget. What a wonderful quality, the ability to lose themselves in the play and imitation of a natural part of life. As time moves, the children simply forget to return. In some ways I think they would make for a lovely wordless book or an illustration read. show less
While playing in an urban park, children come upon a recently dead bird. Some may find the honest show more descriptions of the bird disturbing, "That was the way animals got when they had been dead for some time -- cold dead and stone still with no heart beating." I would hesitate to introduce this book unless there had been some discussion beforehand of death and what that means. To me there is beauty in the way the children enact the ritual of grieving and honoring the life of the bird.
They take great care to prepare a resting place, sing to the bird, and then perhaps most beautifully of all, go back to their play, returning only until they forget. What a wonderful quality, the ability to lose themselves in the play and imitation of a natural part of life. As time moves, the children simply forget to return. In some ways I think they would make for a lovely wordless book or an illustration read. show less
The Little Fir Tree, illustrated by Barbara Cooney.
Standing alone in a field, separated from the sheltering bulk of the trees of the nearby forest, a little fir tree leads a lonely life for his first seven years, before he finds himself uprooted one holiday season, and taken into a local farmhouse to be the Christmas tree of a little boy with a lame leg. After this magical experience, the tree is replanted in the field the next spring, only to be uprooted again in winter, forming a yearly show more pattern that the tree comes to anticipate. Then one winter no one comes to fetch him, and the tree wonders what has become of his yearly friends. The answer comes in the form of his own Christmas visit, as the little boy—now healed!—leads his friends in a singing procession to the tree's field...
The Little Fir Tree was originally published in 1954, in this edition, with artwork by the celebrated Barbara Cooney. I have long wanted to track it down, but discovered in previous years that only the newer edition, published in 2005 with artwork from Jim LaMarche, was available at my local library. I read and enjoyed that newer edition, but kept looking for this original one as well, given my fondness for Cooney's work. I am glad that I did, as I think her simple but immensely expressive artwork is perfectly suited to the story, ably capturing both its melancholy and joyful elements. I liked the incorporation of the music for a few Christmas carols, with lyrics adapted to the events of the story (I can't recall if this was done in the LaMarche edition as well), and I appreciated the vintage style here, with the limited number of color washes—red and green predominating, of course!—and those distinctive Barbara Cooney figures. Recommended to anyone looking for lovely Christmas stories for the picture book set, as well as to fellow Cooney fans. show less
Standing alone in a field, separated from the sheltering bulk of the trees of the nearby forest, a little fir tree leads a lonely life for his first seven years, before he finds himself uprooted one holiday season, and taken into a local farmhouse to be the Christmas tree of a little boy with a lame leg. After this magical experience, the tree is replanted in the field the next spring, only to be uprooted again in winter, forming a yearly show more pattern that the tree comes to anticipate. Then one winter no one comes to fetch him, and the tree wonders what has become of his yearly friends. The answer comes in the form of his own Christmas visit, as the little boy—now healed!—leads his friends in a singing procession to the tree's field...
The Little Fir Tree was originally published in 1954, in this edition, with artwork by the celebrated Barbara Cooney. I have long wanted to track it down, but discovered in previous years that only the newer edition, published in 2005 with artwork from Jim LaMarche, was available at my local library. I read and enjoyed that newer edition, but kept looking for this original one as well, given my fondness for Cooney's work. I am glad that I did, as I think her simple but immensely expressive artwork is perfectly suited to the story, ably capturing both its melancholy and joyful elements. I liked the incorporation of the music for a few Christmas carols, with lyrics adapted to the events of the story (I can't recall if this was done in the LaMarche edition as well), and I appreciated the vintage style here, with the limited number of color washes—red and green predominating, of course!—and those distinctive Barbara Cooney figures. Recommended to anyone looking for lovely Christmas stories for the picture book set, as well as to fellow Cooney fans. show less
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Statistics
- Works
- 265
- Also by
- 15
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- 79,675
- Popularity
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- Rating
- 4.1
- Reviews
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