Margaret Wise Brown Popular Books

Margaret Wise Brown Biography & Facts

Margaret Wise Brown (May 23, 1910 – November 13, 1952) was an American writer of children's books, including Goodnight Moon and The Runaway Bunny, both illustrated by Clement Hurd. She has been called "the laureate of the nursery" for her achievements. Life and career Brown was born in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, the middle child of three of Maude Margaret (Johnson) and Robert Bruce Brown. She was the granddaughter of politician Benjamin Gratz Brown. Her parents had an unhappy marriage. She was initially raised in Brooklyn's Greenpoint neighborhood, and attended Chateau Brilliantmont boarding school in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1923, while her parents were living in India and Canterbury, Connecticut. In 1925, she attended The Kew-Forest School. She began attending Dana Hall School in Wellesley, Massachusetts, in 1926, where she did well in athletics. After graduation in 1928, Brown went on to Hollins College in Roanoke, Virginia. Brown was an avid, lifelong beagler and was noted for her ability to keep pace, on foot, with the hounds.Following her graduation with a B.A. in English from Hollins in 1932, Brown worked as a teacher and also studied art. While working at the Bank Street Experimental School in New York City she started writing books for children. Bank Street promoted a new approach to children's education and literature, emphasizing the real world and the "here and now". This philosophy influenced Brown's work; she was also inspired by the poet Gertrude Stein, whose literary style influenced Brown's own writing.Brown's first published children's book was When the Wind Blew, published in 1937 by Harper & Brothers. Impressed by Brown's "here and now" style, W. R. Scott hired her as his first editor in 1938. Through Scott, she published the Noisy Book series among others. As editor at Scott, one of Brown's first projects was to recruit contemporary authors to write children's books for the company. Ernest Hemingway and John Steinbeck neglected to respond, but Brown's hero Gertrude Stein accepted the offer. Stein's book The World is Round was illustrated by Clement Hurd, who had previously teamed with Brown on W. R. Scott's Bumble Bugs and Elephants, considered "perhaps the first modern board book for babies". Brown and Hurd later teamed on the children's book classics The Runaway Bunny and Goodnight Moon, published by Harper. In addition to publishing a number of Brown's books, under her editorship W. R. Scott published Edith Thacher Hurd's first book, Hurry Hurry, and Esphyr Slobodkina's classic Caps for Sale. The New York Public Library initially banned Good Night Moon due to the influence of retired librarian Anne Carrol Moore, who reportedly "hated" the book. It wasn't until 1972 that the book was finally made available to patrons.From 1944 to 1946, Doubleday published three picture books written by Brown under the pseudonym "Golden MacDonald" (coopted from her friend's handyman) and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard. Weisgard was a runner-up for the Caldecott Medal in 1946, and he won the 1947 Medal for Little Lost Lamb and The Little Island. Two more of their collaborations appeared in 1953 and 1956, after Brown's death. The Little Fisherman, illustrated by Dahlov Ipcar, was published in 1945. The Little Fur Family, illustrated by Garth Williams, was published in 1946. Early in the 1950s she wrote several books for the Little Golden Books series, including The Color Kittens, Mister Dog, and Scuppers The Sailor Dog. Personal life and death While at Hollins she was briefly engaged. She dated, for some time, an unknown "good, quiet man from Virginia," had a long-running affair with William Gaston, and had a summer romance with Preston Schoyer. In the summer of 1940, Brown began a long-term relationship with Blanche Oelrichs (pen name Michael Strange), poet/playwright, actress, and the former wife of John Barrymore. The relationship, which began as a mentoring one, eventually became romantic and included co-habiting at 10 Gracie Square in New York beginning in 1943. As a studio, they used Cobble Court, a wooden house later moved to Charles Street. Oelrichs, who was almost 20 years Brown's senior, died in 1950. Brown went by various nicknames in different circles of friends. To her Dana Hall and Hollins friends she was "Tim," as her hair was the color of timothy hay. To Bank Street friends she was "Brownie." To William Gaston she was "Goldie," in keeping with the use of Golden MacDonald as the author of The Little Island.In 1952, Brown met James Stillman 'Pebble' Rockefeller Jr. at a party, and they became engaged. Later that year, while on a book tour in Nice, France, she died at 42 of an embolism, shortly after surgery for a ruptured appendix. Kicking up her leg to show her nurses how well she was feeling caused a blood clot that had formed in her leg to dislodge and travel to her heart.A 1992 profile in the New Yorker "The Radical Woman Behind 'Goodnight Moon,'" featured a trip through Brown's "Only House" island cottage in Vinalhaven, Maine, which still retains elements of her picture books. The profile includes an interview with Rockefeller, noting that he was one of the few living people who'd known Brown well. They had planned to marry in Panama and honeymoon aboard his boat, the Mandalay, but she did not recover."She was so full in her own life," Rockefeller told the interviewer. "And yet there must have been a lack, somewhere along the line. But whether she would like an ordinary marriage, with children—I just couldn't really see her in that."In 2018, Rockefeller released a memoir called Wayfarer, about his own long life of adventure, including his memories of Brown. By the time of Brown's death, she had authored well over one hundred books. Her ashes were scattered at her island home, "The Only House," in Vinalhaven, Maine. Legacy Brown bequeathed the royalties to many of her books including Goodnight Moon and The Runaway Bunny to Albert Clarke, the son of a neighbor who was nine years old when she died. In 2000, reporter Joshua Prager detailed in The Wall Street Journal the troubled life of Clarke, who has squandered the millions of dollars the books have earned him and who believes that Brown was his mother, a claim others dismiss.Brown left behind over 70 unpublished manuscripts. After unsuccessfully trying to sell them, her sister Roberta Brown Rauch kept them in a cedar trunk for decades. In 1991, a future biographer, Amy Gary of WaterMark Inc., rediscovered the paper-clipped bundles, more than 500 typewritten pages in all, and set about getting the stories published.Many of Brown's books have been re-issued with new illustrations decades after their original publication. Many more of her books are still in print with the original illustrations. Her books have been translated into several languages. Full-length biographies on Brown have been written by Leonard S. Marcus (Harper Paperbacks, 1999), and by Amy Gary (Flatiron Books.... Discover the Margaret Wise Brown popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Margaret Wise Brown books.

Best Seller Margaret Wise Brown Books of 2024

  • The Golden Egg Book synopsis, comments

    The Golden Egg Book

    Margaret Wise Brown & Leonard Weisgard

    A Golden classic about a bunnyand a little duck that is about to hatch! A perfect gift for your child on Easter. Once there was a little bunny. He was all alone. One day he foun...

  • Kitten and the Night Watchman synopsis, comments

    Kitten and the Night Watchman

    John Sullivan

    Winner of the Ezra Jack Keats Award and the Margaret Wise Brown PrizeSELECTED AS A BEST BOOK OF 2018 BY THE BOSTON GLOBE, KIRKUS REVIEWS, PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, AND BOOKPAGE“Empathetic...

  • Goodnight June synopsis, comments

    Goodnight June

    Sarah Jio

    The New York Times bestselling author of Always and Blackberry Winter takes Goodnight Moon as inspiration for this remarkable story of friendship, love, and the...

  • Only Margaret synopsis, comments

    Only Margaret

    Candice Ransom

    When Halley’s comet arrived in 1910, so did an extraordinary person: Margaret Wise Brown. Margaret had a boundless imagination and a gift for spinning stories. Most grownups though...

  • Everything I Need to Know About Family I Learned From a Little Golden Book synopsis, comments

    Everything I Need to Know About Family I Learned From a Little Golden Book

    Diane Muldrow

    Celebrate family and the 75th anniversary of Little Golden Books with the newest book in the everpopular EVERYTHING I NEED TO KNOW series!   Have you ever wished your family w...

  • In the Great Green Room synopsis, comments

    In the Great Green Room

    Amy Gary

    The extraordinary life of the woman behind the beloved children’s classics Goodnight Moon and The Runaway Bunny comes alive in this fascinating biography of Margaret Wise Brown. Ma...

  • You Matter synopsis, comments

    You Matter

    Christian Robinson

    A New York Times bestseller! Five starred reviews!Named Best Book of the Year by Barnes & Noble, The New York Times/New York Public Library, Publishers Weekly, and School Libra...

  • My Best Friend synopsis, comments

    My Best Friend

    Julie Fogliano

    An NPR Best Book of the Year!New York Times bestselling author Julie Fogliano and Caldecott Honor winner Jillian Tamaki come together to tell a delightful story of first friendship...

  • The Train to Timbuctoo synopsis, comments

    The Train to Timbuctoo

    Margaret Wise Brown & Art Seiden

    Back in print for a new generation, a rollicking, rhyming train tale from the author of Goodnight Moon!From Kalamazoo to Timbuctoo, from Timbuctoo and back!This beloved story from ...

  • Fiona on the Swings synopsis, comments

    Fiona on the Swings

    Rilla Alexander

    In the third miniature picture book in the Hippo Park Pals series, perfect for little handsFiona needs help getting onto her swing, and brother Herbert helps out, like big brothers...

  • If I Was the Sunshine synopsis, comments

    If I Was the Sunshine

    Julie Fogliano

    A breathtaking picture book about the relationships we share from New York Times bestselling storytellers Julie Fogliano and Loren Long in the tradition of The Runaway Bunny and Gu...

  • White Freesias synopsis, comments

    White Freesias

    Margaret Wise Brown

    White Freesias is a collection of poems, letters and notes written by Margaret Wise Brown, the author of many wellknown works for children such as Goodnight Moon and Runaway Bunny.

  • Sleep, Baby, Sleep synopsis, comments

    Sleep, Baby, Sleep

    Kerry Bajaj

    Sleep is Kerry Bajaj's superpower. Her daughters Leela, 5, and Rumi, 3, have slept at 7 pm since they were 7 months old. After moving to India with her husband Karan, Kerry's been ...

  • Margaret Wise Brown synopsis, comments

    Margaret Wise Brown

    Leonard S. Marcus

    "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 CarleNearly f...