美国国家公共电台 NPR--'Goodnight Moon' has comforted kids at bedtime for 75 years

'Goodnight Moon' has comforted kids at bedtime for 75 years

Without mystery, hero, handsome prince or fairy godmother — Goodnight Moon has now lulled¹ millions of children to sleep, in more than two dozen languages, for 75 years.

Written by Margaret Wise Brown, with illustrations by Clement² Hurd, the picture book, which has sold more than 40 million copies since its publication on Sept. 3, 1947, wins its readers with a soothing³ series of goodnights to the everyday objects in "the great green room" before bedtime.

"It mirrors what's happening for the child, but it also gives them a feeling of some other world, something else that's sort of a larger, more peaceful world," says Thacher Hurd, Clement's son and himself a children's book author and illustrator.

"'Good night stars and good night air. Good night noises everywhere.' It's very expansive. You don't even think about it, but it is extremely sort of open and wide and a big feeling to it," reflects Hurd.

Goodnight Moon has been adapted for stage and screen, been featured on The Simpsons, parodied⁴, and given a special reading by LeVar Burton to Neil deGrasse Tyson. To celebrate its 75th anniversary, HarperCollins is publishing a special slipcase edition with a new foreword by Thacher Hurd.

But the now iconic picture book was by no means an overnight sensation. Hard to believe — but in 1947 this innocent bedtime ritual was considered revolutionary.

Fairy tales versus⁵ the here-and-now

Once upon a time, librarians set the standard for what books children should read. For decades, they believed classic fairy tales and fantasy were best for young minds, says children's book historian Leonard Marcus. They favored stories, he explains, "that transported children out of the everyday world and enriched and cultivated their imagination."

By contrast, Brown brought children into a world they might know.

"Goodnight Moon was one of the first books for young children that focused on the everyday and recognized its value and significance for young children," says Marcus, author of Margaret Wise Brown: Awakened⁶ by the Moon.

In 1935, Brown began a long association with the progressive Bank Street school in New York City. Founded by educator and writer Lucy Sprague Mitchell, Bank Street brought together psychologists, pediatricians, sociologists, and student teachers to explore how children learn. They collected data by observing and talking directly to the experts: the children themselves. Their findings are neatly⁷ summed up in the title of Mitchell's Here And Now Story Book.

Marcus says Bank Street practitioners⁸ learned that children, "want to know about the world they're in at the moment, starting with their own room and their own surroundings and their own street. The noises they hear, the airplanes that go overhead, the trains and cars that go by, they thought all those everyday things were wonderful from a from a young child's perspective."

The udder problem

Goodnight Moon had its own kind of "here-and-now" spirit. But for a children's book to be commercially successful in 1947, it needed the approval of the New York Public Library, namely its influential⁹ children's librarian Anne Carroll Moore.

Moore had an aversion to the progressives at Bank Street, something Goodnight Moon's editor at Harper's, Ursula Nordstrom, knew first-hand. In 1945, Moore tried to prevent another book Nordstrom edited, E.B. White's Stuart Little, from being published. Moore was apparently¹⁰ disturbed at the thought of a mouse being born to a human.

Nordstrom, says Marcus, understood that Moore and other librarians "were very squeamish about bodily parts and physicality in general." So she told illustrator Clement Hurd to make small tweaks to a couple of the items in his vibrant¹¹ and detailed¹² "great green room."

In an early version of Hurd's artwork, the mouse was on the little bunny's bed and the cow jumping over the moon in the picture on the wall was anatomically correct with an udder. Take the mouse off the bed and remove the udder from the cow, Nordstrom advised. "She was on the alert," says Marcus. "She didn't want to deep six a book based on one or two details in the pictures."

When Goodnight Moon was published in 1947, reviews were generally positive. The Christian¹³ Science Monitor wrote, "in these days of hurry and strain, a book for little children which creates an atmosphere of peace and calm is something for which to be thankful." Kirkus Reviews called it a "really fresh idea."

But, despite Nordstrom's efforts, Moore was not impressed. The New York Public Library not only excluded Goodnight Moon from its recommended children's book list, it didn't even acquire it for the NYPL system.

"What they didn't understand was, [Brown] went straight to the child and that sort of basic human need," says Jean McGinley, vice¹⁴ president and associate publisher for HarperCollins' Children's Books. McGinley calls Brown a "trailblazer" who "broke a formula" and incorporated "social emotional learning...before anybody else."

Margaret Wise Brown was something of a glamourous, wild-child: a spirited, creative and experimental writer known for wearing furs and driving a convertible¹⁵. She loved rabbits and kept them as pets. The Runaway¹⁶ Bunny is another Brown/Hurd collaboration¹⁷. But she was also active in the sport of "beagling" in which runners race through the woods after beagles chasing down hares or rabbits — and not to kiss them goodnight. "She was not like a sweet, cute children's book writer," remarks Thacher Hurd wryly¹⁸.

"I don't especially like children"

Commenting on the possible contradiction between creating cuddly¹⁹ bunny characters and hunting them for sport, Brown told Life magazine, "Well I don't especially like children, either," she continued, "at least not as a group. I won't let anyone get away with anything just because he is little."

But Brown expressed that she was very much in touch with her inner child. She once said that, to be a children's writer "one has to love not children but what children love." And Brown did understand and give children what they wanted. In addition to writing more than 100 stories for them, she championed and edited other children's book writers and illustrators. She introduced the board book after observing small children chew on pages, and picture books with fur and bells and other tactile²⁰ sensations.

"A book can make a child laugh or feel clear-and-happy-headed as he follows a simple rhythm to its logical end," Brown once said. "It can jog him with the unexpected and comfort him with the familiar, lift him for a few minutes from his own problems of shoelaces that won't tie and busy parents and mysterious clock-time, into the world of a bug²¹ or a bear or a bee or a boy living in the timeless world of story. If I've been lucky, I hope I have written a book simple enough to come near to that timeless world."

Margaret Wise Brown never lived to see Goodnight Moon's colossal²² success. In 1952, on a trip to Paris, she died suddenly from an embolism following an operation. She was 42 years old. Twenty years later, the New York Public Library acquired Goodnight Moon and eventually named it one of the "Books of the Century."

1 lulled   

vt.使镇静，使安静（lull的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• They lulled her into a false sense of security. 他们哄骗她，使她产生一种虚假的安全感。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The movement of the train lulled me to sleep. 火车轻微的震动催我进入梦乡。 来自《简明英汉词典》

2 clement   

adj.仁慈的；温和的

参考例句：

• A clement judge reduced his sentence.一位仁慈的法官为他减了刑。
• The planet's history contains many less stable and clement eras than the holocene.地球的历史包含着许多不如全新世稳定与温和的地质时期。

3 soothing   

adj.慰藉的；使人宽心的；镇静的

参考例句：

• Put on some nice soothing music.播放一些柔和舒缓的音乐。
• His casual, relaxed manner was very soothing.他随意而放松的举动让人很快便平静下来。

4 parodied   

v.滑稽地模仿，拙劣地模仿( parody的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• All these peculiarities of his style have been parodied by his assailants. 他的所有这些风格特征都受到攻击者模仿嘲弄。 来自互联网
• The above examples are all slightly parodied versions of classical dance steps. 上述例子都可以说是经典舞步的模仿版本。 来自互联网

5 versus   

prep.以…为对手，对；与…相比之下

参考例句：

• The big match tonight is England versus Spain.今晚的大赛是英格兰对西班牙。
• The most exciting game was Harvard versus Yale.最富紧张刺激的球赛是哈佛队对耶鲁队。

6 awakened   

v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到

参考例句：

• She awakened to the sound of birds singing. 她醒来听到鸟的叫声。
• The public has been awakened to the full horror of the situation. 公众完全意识到了这一状况的可怕程度。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 neatly   

adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地

参考例句：

• Sailors know how to wind up a long rope neatly.水手们知道怎样把一条大绳利落地缠好。
• The child's dress is neatly gathered at the neck.那孩子的衣服在领口处打着整齐的皱褶。

8 practitioners   

n.习艺者，实习者( practitioner的名词复数 )；从业者（尤指医师）

参考例句：

• one of the greatest practitioners of science fiction 最了不起的科幻小说家之一
• The technique is experimental, but the list of its practitioners is growing. 这种技术是试验性的，但是采用它的人正在增加。 来自辞典例句

9 influential   

adj.有影响的，有权势的

参考例句：

• He always tries to get in with the most influential people.他总是试图巴结最有影响的人物。
• He is a very influential man in the government.他在政府中是个很有影响的人物。

10 apparently   

adv.显然地；表面上，似乎

参考例句：

• An apparently blind alley leads suddenly into an open space.山穷水尽，豁然开朗。
• He was apparently much surprised at the news.他对那个消息显然感到十分惊异。

11 vibrant   

adj.震颤的，响亮的，充满活力的，精力充沛的，(色彩)鲜明的

参考例句：

• He always uses vibrant colours in his paintings. 他在画中总是使用鲜明的色彩。
• She gave a vibrant performance in the leading role in the school play.她在学校表演中生气盎然地扮演了主角。

12 detailed   

adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的

参考例句：

• He had made a detailed study of the terrain.他对地形作了缜密的研究。
• A detailed list of our publications is available on request.我们的出版物有一份详细的目录备索。

13 Christian   

adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒

参考例句：

• They always addressed each other by their Christian name.他们总是以教名互相称呼。
• His mother is a sincere Christian.他母亲是个虔诚的基督教徒。

14 vice   

n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的

参考例句：

• He guarded himself against vice.他避免染上坏习惯。
• They are sunk in the depth of vice.他们堕入了罪恶的深渊。

15 convertible   

adj.可改变的，可交换，同意义的；n.有活动摺篷的汽车

参考例句：

• The convertible sofa means that the apartment can sleep four.有了这张折叠沙发，公寓里可以睡下4个人。
• That new white convertible is totally awesome.那辆新的白色折篷汽车简直棒极了。

16 runaway   

n.逃走的人，逃亡，亡命者；adj.逃亡的，逃走的

参考例句：

• The police have not found the runaway to date.警察迄今没抓到逃犯。
• He was praised for bringing up the runaway horse.他勒住了脱缰之马受到了表扬。

17 collaboration   

n.合作，协作；勾结

参考例句：

• The two companies are working in close collaboration each other.这两家公司密切合作。
• He was shot for collaboration with the enemy.他因通敌而被枪毙了。

18 wryly   

adv. 挖苦地，嘲弄地

参考例句：

• Molly smiled rather wryly and said nothing. 莫莉苦笑着，一句话也没说。
• He smiled wryly, then closed his eyes and gnawed his lips. 他狞笑一声，就闭了眼睛，咬着嘴唇。 来自子夜部分

19 cuddly   

adj.抱着很舒服的，可爱的

参考例句：

• The beautiful crib from Mom and Dad is so cuddly.爸爸妈妈送的漂亮婴儿床真舒服。
• You can't call a hedgehog cuddly.你不能说刺猬逗人喜爱。

20 tactile   

adj.触觉的，有触觉的，能触知的

参考例句：

• Norris is an expert in the tactile and the tangible.诺里斯创作最精到之处便是，他描绘的人物使人看得见摸得着。
• Tactile communication uses touch rather than sight or hearing.触觉交流，是用触摸感觉，而不是用看或听来感觉。

21 bug   

n.虫子；故障；窃听器；vt.纠缠；装窃听器

参考例句：

• There is a bug in the system.系统出了故障。
• The bird caught a bug on the fly.那鸟在飞行中捉住了一只昆虫。

22 colossal   

adj.异常的，庞大的

参考例句：

• There has been a colossal waste of public money.一直存在巨大的公款浪费。
• Some of the tall buildings in that city are colossal.那座城市里的一些高层建筑很庞大。