Thread by @careyhelmick

just finished this fascinating biography of Margaret Wise Brown. among many things to note of much more importance, she dressed EXACTLY as a moodily introspective mid-century authoress ought.

(very long and detailed thread)

most interesting, to me, is her self-penned epitaph "writer of songs and nonsense". she was disappointed her whole life that she couldn't break into the world of literature for grown-ups, and was stuck writing 'nonsense' for children. prolific, radical, brilliant nonsense!

she was a pioneer. she read her manuscripts to children and took careful notes about what interested them, listened to their stories and documented the words they liked to use, and strove to regain the perspective of a child in order to write *well* for them.

also, she paid attention to child development and thought carefully about what specific age she was writing for, correctly noting that books for two year olds should be very different from books for six year olds!

for example, two year olds like books about the "Here-And-Now" (the titular description of the first collection she worked on). Caregivers, food, home objects, and routines are all good subjects for lil ones (the themes of Goodnight Moon begin to surface!)

by six, children have better sorted out real from not-real and therefore are ready to enjoy more fantasy and stories of that sort. Brown kept the fairy world very much alive for herself, as fondly remembered by her surviving fiancé (we'll get to that)

some MWB titles you might know: Goodnight Moon, The Runaway Bunny, The Golden Egg Book, Away in my Airplane, The Little Island, and Scuppers the Sailor Dog, plus literally hundreds of other stories, songs, and poems, nearly all for children.

Goodnight Moon was inspired by the comfort she took in looking around her own room at her familiar objects. She wrote a poem on that theme about a little girl. Years later, she had a dream about a room with green walls. The poem became the book we all know about a little bunny.

MWB worked with her good friend, Clement Hurd, to create illustrations based on her own bedroom, which she painted green with red and yellow accents. The book purposefully gets darker and darker in shade, with greatly soporific success.

(can't talk about Goodnight Moon without linking to this funny piece by @theuglyvolvo. MWB had a great sense of humor so she might have been able to enjoy it, too.) theuglyvolvo.com/issues-goodnig…

The Runaway Bunny was inspired by a morbid provençal French ballad and came to her mind while on a ski trip. She couldn't keep up climbing with her Olympian date (no ski lift!) so she headed back down the mountain and wrote out the whole book on the back of her ski receipt

Les Métamorphoses (translated by MWB)

If you pursue me
I shall become a fish in the water
And I shall escape you

And if you become a fish
I shall become an eel
And I shall eat you

If you become an eel
I shall become a fox
And I shall escape you

If you become a fox
I shall become a hunter
And I shall hunt you

If you hunt me
I shall be buried deep, deep in the ground
And you will never have my love

If you are dead, dead and buried
I will be the dust on your grave
And I will marry you, dead or alive

moving onto Scuppers The Sailor Dog, a favorite of my paternal grandfather, my dad, my little brother, and my toddler. It was inspired by watching her fiancé try to rescue a poor shrimper's boat, dashed against the rocks. She intended to give it to her fiancé as a wedding present

She met James Stillman "Pebble" Rockefeller Jr. at the age of 42. He was 27. They fell immediately and wildly in love and planned to get married ASAP. She had some business to take care of in NYC and France and he had sth else to do, so they planned to meet in Panama in 3 months

While in France, she developed a blood clot after surgery for appendicitis. Kicking her leg to prove how good she felt, she dislodged the blood clot and had a stroke. She died within two days.

I was shocked by this plot twist, not knowing she had died so young and having plenty of my book left to read, which turned out to be mostly bibliography

few more things:

Some found it ironic that one who wrote so tenderly of little bunnies could be an avid rabbit hunter, but she adored it! She could keep up with the beagles on foot really well. She loved dogs and horses.

She lived many different places but her favorites were Cobble Court, a tiny house she discovered, named, covered in furs and used as a writing studio in New York, and her Only House, on an Island in Maine, so named because while there it was the only house you could see.

She LOVED the ocean and asked the Coast Guard if she could arrange a burial at sea. they sent her a letter basically saying "hahahahahahha no". Instead, Pebble put a headstone at her Only House and sprinkled her ashes in the water.

Even though she had thought to get her will completely sorted out earlier the year she died, her web of publishing deals, pending manuscripts, and rights was a whole mess to sort out, and many of her works got packed away, unpublished.

She left most of her royalties to the son of a neighbor at Cobble Court, Albert Clarke (who believes she was his bio mom!!!). They weren't worth much at the time but have since brought him immense wealth, which he has squandered on a terrible life: joshuaprager.com/articles/runaw…

Margaret Wise Brown was like a character from a book herself: smart, funny, athletic, gorgeous, popular, bisexual, affectionate, needy, sharp, fashionable. Knew how to party, had many friends, and many affairs. No (other?) children, but she thought of her books as her children./

(I found saddest that he apparently convinced his children that the Real Reason they don't have any friends is because the friends could potentially sue them and try to take their money, so being lonely is Smart, Actually. Those poor kids.)