There is something surreal about revisiting your favourite children’s books as an adult. These stories used to unlock fantastical landscapes and whimsical creatures, and we used to dream that these places were real when we drifted off to sleep. What is so special about the children’s book is that it also speaks to the adult. Indeed, not only is it adults who write these books, but it’s adults who read them to the child, finding their mind is also getting carried away by the fantastical. There are a few children’s books that have stuck with me into my 20s, but Goodnight Moon has always taken up a special spot in my heart.
Published in 1947, Goodnight Moon is a beloved bedtime story, cherished for its simple yet soothing narrative. The story unfolds within the confines of a cozy room as a young rabbit says goodnight to various objects and creatures, creating a tranquil bedtime ritual for readers. The language and gentle illustrations create a calming atmosphere, yet there is something weirdly eerie about the story that both the child and the adult can’t seem to put their finger on. It was only when I read about the woman behind Goodnight Moon that I learned what was so striking about the little world set up for us within the pages.
Margarett Brown believed that children didn’t need the unreal, they could be just as easily fascinated by the real. Indeed, the objects of Goodnight Moon consist of a rocking chair, a bowl of mush, a bunny, a window, and other everyday objects. The book takes place in a seemingly normal home, and yet something feels so otherworldly. Thinking back to my fascination with this book, I can understand exactly why I was so taken aback by it in the context of myself today. As a major in religious studies, I enjoy finding the sacred in the mundane. I love seeing how people interpret the world around them. I find it enthralling that something could be completely ordinary to me yet divine to the next person. I think this is what Goodnight Moon instilled in me as a child: to be fascinated by everything, to question everything, and to find your own sense of strangeness within the ordinary.
From this perspective, I can go back and read the book as the story of an eerie bedtime ritual. Why do we need to say goodnight to the brush? Can it hear us? What would it feel like in this little bedroom? Would it feel like a dream or a nightmare?
If Margarett Brown’s goal was to enable children to see what is so fascinating about ordinary life, she certainly succeeded with me. Years later, this book gives me that same whimsical yet unsettling feeling. I realize there’s a parallel between the emotions this book stirs within me and the disorienting experience of waking up suddenly in the middle of the night. In those moments of darkness, the familiar shape of your room is glazed with the unknown, and for those few seconds, you are transported somewhere new. The book, much like midnight awakenings, transform the mundane into the extraordinary.
I am glad Margarett Brown existed, as she is the one who taught me to always be on the hunt for the subtle hums of strangeness in the ordinary.