海角大神

Samantha Laine Perfas:聽

In the great green room

There was a telephone

And a red balloon

And a picture of 鈥�

The cow jumping over the moon

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Laine Perfas: Welcome to Rethinking the News. I鈥檓 your host, Samantha Laine Perfas.

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Laine Perfas: So begins the classic children鈥檚 book 鈥淕oodnight Moon,鈥� written by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Clement Hurd. The book is celebrating its 75th anniversary on Sept. 3. Set in the 鈥済reat green room,鈥� the narrator highlights a variety of items around the room 鈥� such as kittens and mittens and a bowl full of mush 鈥� and then proceeds to wish these items 鈥済oodnight鈥� as the night progresses.聽

Today I鈥檓 joined by Harry Bruinius to talk about the book鈥檚 legacy as an important piece of children鈥檚 literature. Here鈥檚 our conversation.聽

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Laine Perfas: Harry, thanks so much for joining today. Do you mind just introducing yourself and sharing a little bit about what you do at the Monitor?

Harry Bruinius: I鈥檓 the staff writer in New York City. The biggest part of my job is covering religion and politics. But I do a lot of other things as well. I鈥檝e covered sports. I鈥檝e covered other kinds of cultural issues. Yeah. That鈥檚 my job here at the Monitor.

Laine Perfas: So for this story, you wrote about the 75th anniversary of 鈥淕oodnight Moon.鈥� You never really read 鈥淕oodnight Moon鈥� until you were assigned the story. What was your impression?

Bruinius: Well, I had heard of it. It鈥檚 one of those major titles that kind of runs through the cultural currents. But the experience of reading it for the first time, I was really surprised. I was surprised about how engaged I was going through the panels, and seeing the different quirks of this story that has made readers love it for so many decades. I was charmed by the nursery rhyme prose that yet is sort of modern and odd and elliptical. I was really impressed by how different it was.聽

Laine Perfas: OK. Be honest. Did you think it was at all creepy?

Bruinius: You know, it wasn鈥檛 not creepy. And I was thinking about why I felt that way. The little bunny is alone. And then, you know, the quiet old lady comes in, but it鈥檚 not mother, it鈥檚 not grandmother. It鈥檚 a quiet old lady. So there鈥檚 sort of a mystery to who she is. The silence of the sky and the stars outside 鈥� there鈥檚 an immensity, which leads to kind of the traditional feeling of dread or awe.

Laine Perfas: Yeah, it鈥檚 so hard to put into words, but there is this oddness to the book. I didn鈥檛 read it growing up, but I have a 10-month-old now. And we always hold up two books at bedtime, and he often chooses 鈥淕oodnight Moon.鈥� And at first that was baffling, because I was like, 鈥淭his book is just kind of weird!鈥� But now that I鈥檝e read it so many times, I find myself reading it in this almost trancelike cadence, and it鈥檚 grown on me a little bit. In writing this story about the anniversary, what was it that people talked about that they loved about the book? Why has it lasted so long?聽

Bruinius: One of the themes that immediately came out with everyone that I talked to was this intergenerational experience. One of the characters in the story talked about being at a birthday party. And there were family members and friends, anywhere from five to over 90. And they all had stories to tell about their experiences with the book. People have memories of reading it as a child. And then it becomes the storytelling that you do as a parent. So it was just interesting how generation by generation, people react to this book enthusiastically.聽

Laine Perfas: And even now, when we talk about the book, it鈥檚 actually considered quite innovative and even radical. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Bruinius: It was really radical for its time. This approach to storytelling 鈥� it was kind of rooted in very simple details around a room. The parents and the child鈥檚 experience reading it is searching the pictures for socks and mittens and kittens and a bowlful of mush. And that becomes just a different kind of immediate experience, rather than a moral tale as nursery rhyme. And this was innovative for its time. I think that there was a kind of a conscious effort by Margaret Wise Brown and the illustrator Clement Hurd, to do something modern, and rooted in a sociological and psychological understanding of childhood development.聽

Laine Perfas: Speaking of the author, she herself was actually a pretty incredible woman with an interesting story. Can you tell me a little bit about her?

Bruinius: Margaret Wise Brown, when she was younger, she attended the famous Bank Street Education School, who were kind of pioneers in the kinds of approaches to childhood development that I was talking about. And she was also sort of a woman who was ahead of her times. She lived with a woman, Blanche Oelrichs, [who] went by a male writer鈥檚 name, Michael Strange. And she would dress like a man. So she kind of had, you might call, a queer sexuality. And she鈥檚 also writing these interesting, different avant garde children鈥檚 stories, of which she had dozens, I think even hundreds to her name. This was her lasting legacy.

Laine Perfas: So I mentioned before, but this marks the 75th anniversary of this book. Do you think the book will continue to draw an audience?

Bruinius: Well, you might know better than me, since you鈥檙e reading it.

Laine Perfas: According to my son.

Bruinius: Yeah. One of the parents that I talked to, you know, said the exact same thing, that this was one of his five year old son鈥檚 favorite books. As a bedtime ritual, it seems to have found this sweet spot of both visual and auditory pleasure. It seems it isn鈥檛 going away anytime soon.

Laine Perfas: Well, thank you so much, Harry, for telling us a little bit more about everything you learned writing this story.

Bruinius: It was a pleasure. This was so fun.聽

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Laine Perfas: Thanks for listening. You can find a link to Harry鈥檚 story and a transcript for this episode at csmonitor.com/rethinkingthenews. This story was hosted by me, Samantha Laine Perfas, and co-produced with Jingnan Peng and Luke Cregan. Edited by Clay Collins. Our sound engineers were Tim Malone and Noel Flatt. Copyright by 海角大神, 2022.