In The Great Green Room: The Brilliant and Bold Life of Margaret Wise Brown

My narrative runs like this: I fell in love with reading and art with the Little Golden Books and discovered the great classics with Classics Illustrated Comic Books.

Little Golden Books were inexpensive, readily available, and mass produced; that meant even on a meager budget Mom could splurge and buy them for me. I loved the stories and the illustrations and spent many an hour pouring over them.

Margaret Wise Brown wrote books enjoyed by generations of children and parents. Reading In The Great Green Room by Amy Gary I learned about the iconic author of some of my favorite Golden Books and who also wrote our son's beloved baby books Goodnight, Moon and The Runaway Bunny.

Author Amy Gary hit a gold mine when she contacted Margaret's sister and discovered a hidden hoard of unpublished manuscripts left behind after the author's death.

I learned about the influences on Margaret's work based on her daily life. As girls, Margaret and her sister would say goodnight to everything in their bedroom, memorialized in Goodnight, Moon. Their father's library was painted grass green, and she later painted her room green.

Margaret's illustrators incorporated Margaret's world into her books. Clem Hurd based the fireplace in Goodnight, Moon on the one at Margaret's rented NYC writing retreat Cobble Court. Leonard Weisgard's illustrations for Little Island is based on the view from Margaret's Maine retreat, the Only House.

Margaret had a creative mind brimming with outside the box ideas. She revolutionized children's literature and book publishing. Margaret was insistent on putting writing first in her life. She fell in love many times with the men who were unsuitable matches. Margaret's love life was unhappy, and her great loves failed her in the end, including Michael Strange, the beautiful society woman who was a suffragette, poet, and actress. Just when she had met a man whose zest for life matched her own, Margaret unexpectedly died.

I enjoyed learning about the inspiration behind Margaret's books. For instance, Mr. Dog is the story of her own Kerry Blue Terrier, Crispin's Crispian.

The beginning of Mr. Dog by Margaret Wise Brown
illustrated by Garth Williams. From my collection.

The dog's name was inspired by Shakespeare's Henry V:

"And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by, From this day to the ending of the world,But we in it shall be remember'd; We few, we happy few, we band of brothers..."

The Golden Egg Book was a larger book giving illustrator Leonard Weisgard lovely space to fill. Margaret brought him a collection of wildflowers to use in the art. He was allergic and the next day his eyes were swollen shut!

The Golden Egg Book by Margaret Wise Brown
illustrated by Leonard Weisgard. From my collection.

I also love Margaret's story Little Pussycat, with pictures by Weisgard. The kitten is so small the garden denizens tower like a forest filled with magical creatures.

My son's favorite Golden Books included Margaret's Things I Like, illustrated by Garth Williams. He was enchanted by the dog on the hill.

Margaret's stories included books that appeal to boys as well as girls. The Train to Timbuctoo, with illustrations by Art Seiden, is a joy to read aloud. 

Margaret's books about men at work include The Little Fat Policeman was written by Margaret and Edith Thacher Hurd, wife of illustrator Clement Hurd who did the art for Runaway Bunny and Goodnight, Moon. Alice and Martin Provensen provided the art for the Policeman. Margaret and Edith also wrote Five Little Firemen and Seven Little Postmen with art by Tibor Gergerly. Their book Two Little Miners was illustrated by Richard Scary--his first book.

Each chapter beings with one of Margaret's verses or songs. There is a lovely section of photographs, notes, index, and sources included. My one complaint about this biography is that I would have loved an index of Margaret's books by year and publisher.

I have written about the Little Golden Books before, celebrating their 75th anniversary, and about the book Everything I Need To Know I Learned From A Little Golden Books by Diane Muldrow.

In The Great Green Room: The Brilliant and Bold Life of Margaret Wise Brown
Amy Gary
Flatiron Books
ISBN: 978-1-250-06536-0

75 Years of Little Golden Books

It is the 75 anniversary of Little Golden Books. The first book was Pokey Little Puppy published in September, 1942.

My first books were Little Golden Books. Mom brought them home from the grocery store.  They cost 25 cents at the time. We did not have much money, and sometimes Mom had trouble coming up with money for the paper boy and robbed Dad's coin collection! It is a testament that Mom would buy me books when she really shouldn't have spent the money. I grew up a book lover.

I collected a long shelf full before they were passed down to my little brother. Years later I only had a few left of my original books so I recollected them to share with my son.

The books had engaging stories and amazing illustrations that captivated me. I loved J. P. Miller's art. Lucky Mrs Ticklefeather was one of my favorite Golden Books. I felt so bad for Little Galoshes when the farm animals would not recognize him without his galoshes.

 Pantaloon was another favorite story. I adored the art work in I Can Fly, created by Mary Blair who became famous for her art work for Disney. The Blue Book of Fairy Tales had beautiful illustrations.

I thought the children in Frosty The Snowman were me and my cousins Linda, Elaine, and Stevie. Dogs, The Sky, and The Moon are some of my original books. I always had an interest in science. Donald Duck's Adventure included his being bit by a turtle! I liked the Autumn trees in the illustrations.

This is a later edition of A Child's Garden of Verses illustrated by Eloise Wilkins. I am sure my copy led to my lifelong love of Stevenson's poems. I have a collection of different illustrated editions now.

There are over 400 Little Golden Book titles available now and over 1000 titles have been punished, amounting to billions of books.

My love of story and of art are rooted in these books.

What were your favorites?

Mid-Cenury Value Life Lessons From Our Childhood Bookshelf

Everything I Need to Know I Learned From A Little Golden Book was just too cute to pass up. Bound like a classic Golden Book, complete with gold printed spine, the book was only $9.99. It is filled with great illustrations from the books.

I was a toddler when Mom started bringing home Golden Books from the grocery store. I would run excitedly to met her to see what she had brought me. Looking back, it was quite a luxury because we did not have a lot of money.

The illustrations alone kept my attention for hours, even when Mom was not reading the book to me. I had amassed a long shelf full of Golden Books before childhood ended. I went away to college and they disappeared. When our son was born I started recollecting classic and new titles.

 Some of my favorite books included:

I Can Fly by Mary Blair, an artist who is well known for her concept art work for Disney animated films including Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan and Cinderella. She designed Disneyland rides like It's a Small World. Blair's work has garnered much attention in recent years.

I Can Fly by Mary Blair

Frosty the Snow Man. The kids looked like me and my cousins, at least that's what Mom told me as she read it. I thought it was truly about us kids--Linda, Stevie, Elaine and I.

Frosty the Snow Man illustrated by Corinne Malvern

The Blue Book of Fairy Tales has some of the most marvelous illustrations.


The Blue Book of Fairy Tales illustrated by Gordon Laite

Lucky Mrs Ticklefeather has a pet puffin who goes to great lengths to fulfill her sickbed wish.
I loved J. P. Miller's art in all the Golden Books.


Lucky Mrs Ticklefeather by Dorothy Kunhart and illustrated by J. P. Miller

 Pantaloon has high hopes to become a pastry chief. The illustrations were some of my favorites.

Pantaloon by Kathryn Jackson and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard

An article with pictures from the books can be found at:
http://americanhistory.si.edu/documentsgallery/exhibitions/goldenbooks/

For information on the illustrators:
http://www.thesantis.com/who_who/illustrators___authors.htm

Diane Muldrow is a Random House editor for Little Golden Books. She looked at the world today and thought that we needed to revisit the basic values found in the Golden Books of our childhood.

She chose classic illustrations from the books and added tips for life.

"Is your life starting to feel like a circus? Don't panic...Today's a new day!"

As she wrote in the forward: "Maybe these books can help you. After all, Golden Books were first published during the dark days of World War II, and they've been comforting people during trying times ever since."

Don't Let the Parade Pass You By

Richard Scary illustrator

  Be open to making new friends...even if you are very, very shy.

Those words from The Shy Little Kitten by Cathleen Schurr and illustrated by Gustaf Tenggren must have been written for me, for I was a very shy child.

I dare say I took this advice to heart. I spent many an hour day dreaming!

Day Dream

from I Can Fly by Mary Blair