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Margaret Wise Brown: Awakened By the Moon
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About Margaret Wise Brown: Awakened By The Moon
Product Description "Leonard S. Marcus... has masterfully written about a fascinating woman who in her short life changed literature for the very young. I was throroughly enchanted."--Eric Carle Nearly fifty years after her sudden death at the age of forty-two, Margaret Wise Brown remains a legend and an enigma. Author of Goodnight Moon, The Runaway Bunny, and dozens of other children's classics, Brown all but invented the picture book as we know it today. Combining poetic instinct with a profound empathy for small children, she understood a child's need for security, love, and a sense of being at home in the world. Yet, these were comforts that had eluded her. Her sparkling presence and her unparalleled success as a legendary children's book author masked an insecurity that left her restless and vulnerable. In this authoritative and moving biography, Leonard S. Marcus, who had access to never-before-published letters and family papers, portrays Brown's complex character and her tragic, seesaw life. Colorful, thoughtful, and insightful, Margaret Wise Brown is both a portrayal of a woman whose stories still speak to millions and a portrait of New York in the 1930s and 1940s, when the literary world blossomed and made history. Review "An absorbing biography." -- The New York Times Book Review "More than a finely etched, honest portrait of an artist, Margaret Wise Brown is an exciting, fast-paced glimpse into the very beginnings of the golden age of children's book publishing in America. Leonard Marcus has restored Brown to her rightful place as both pioneer and poet." -- Maurice Sendak From the Back Cover Margaret Wise Brown, the author of Goodnight Moon and dozens of other children's classics, all but invented the picture book as we know it today. Combining poetic instinct with a profound empathy for small children, she knew of a child's need for security, love, and a sense of being at home in the worldand she brought that unique tenderness to the page. Yet these were comforts that eluded her. Brown's youthful presence and professional successas an editor, bestselling author, and self-styled impresariomasked an insecurity that left her restless and vulnerable. In this moving biography, Marcus portrays Brown's complex character and her tragic, seesaw life. Her literary achievement and groundbreaking discoveries about small children's emotional needs were offset by tormented romances including a passionate relationship with Michael Strange, the celebrity socialite once married to John Barrymore. About the Author Leonard S. Marcus is a historian, biographer, and critic whose many books include Margaret Wise Brown: Awakened by the Moon; Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom; and Storied City. In addition, he has been Parenting magazine's children's book reviewer since 1987. This is his first picture book. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife, Amy Schwartz, and their son, Jacob. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. In an autobiographic sketch prepared for her publishers, Margaret Wise Brown once described her earliest childhood memories. Among them were images of a "city street with high iron gates, a red brick church at the end of the street and the sound of boats on the river"; a recollection of the "painful shy animal dignity with which a child stretches to conform to a strange adult social politeness"; thoughts about death, dreaming, "mysterious clock time," and aging; and a "problem of aesthetics I hadwhy wasnt an airedales {sic} face beautiful, if it was beautiful to me?" As a child, a favorite pastime of hers was to make up little tunes, to set poems she composed to old melodies, and to croon traditional songs like "Dixie"an anthem which beguiled her in part through a misunderstanding: "I thought Dixie Land and Sandy Bottom were two little girls. I envied them and cherished them, as a child does imaginary playmates, and I never understood why Dixie Land kept looking awa
