‘Goodnight Moon’ Revisited

October 16, 2019

Margaret Wise Brown’s classic Goodnight Moon has influenced generations of bedtime readers, as seen recently in Eric Betts’s take on the book’s world-building. For the Los Angeles Review of Books, Brian Goedde takes a closer look at the characters within the book, particularly the bunny at the center of the tale. “Children don’t buy their own books, after all,” Goedde writes. “We parents, grandparents, nannies, family friends, babysitters, quiet-old-lady caregivers of every kind continue to read this book because we need to know: while we want our little bunnies to separate-individuate themselves, once they do, what becomes of us?”

is a writer and illustrator. She is the author of two illustrated books, Last Night's Reading (Penguin Books, 2015) and Sanpaku (Archaia 2018).