"AND IT WAS GOOD TO BE A LITTLE ISLAND."

Margaret Wise Brown, the children’s author I’ve idolized for decades, once wrote a

 

 

fascinating and delightful book for children called The Little Island.  The book was about Maine and the coastal islands, which she loved.  As Leonard Marcus expressed in his book, Awakened By the Moon, “The Little Island

 

points to a sense of the world as a vast and various place in which one needs never feel dwarfed or over-shadowed.  And it was good to be a little island.  A part of the world and a world of its own all surrounded by the bright blue sea.”

Margaret easily made friends with the fishermen of Maine, who admired her physical strength and tenacity.  The only home she ever owned she called The Only House.  It was an abandoned quarry master’s house on an island. 

Born in the spring of 1910 in Brooklyn, New York, Margaret was always a daydreamer.  She loved animals and had many pets as a child—rabbits, squirrels, guinea pigs, goldfish, cats, and dogs.  She and her siblings once buried a small animal they found.  In her early children’s book, The Dead Bird, Margaret wrote, “And every day, until they forgot, the children went and sang to their little dead bird and put fresh flowers on his grave.” 

One of the unique things about Margaret Wise Brown is that she told stories about the child’s world from the child’s point of view.  Her words were often like poetry—simple, emotional, meaningful and tender with some added mystery and intrigue.  In her brief life of 42 years, she wrote over 100 books.  She was unique, whimsical, extremely creative, and original—an individualist who wasn’t afraid to test the “norms” of children’s literature at the time.  She understood young children and was an imaginative storyteller, even at the age of six.  She once wrote, “There is a loving way with words and an unloving way, and it is only with the loving way that the simplicity of language becomes beautiful.”

In a December 1946 Life magazine article Margaret revealed that she often wrote drafts of stories on shopping lists and scraps of paper.  I could definitely relate to that, and it’s often easier to write on those small scraps; the difficulty is finding where you put them.  Still, I try to cut myself a little slack, knowing that a brilliant children’s author frequently did the same.

Margaret was sometimes restless and impatient and felt like she was wasting time if she waited to write a book.  She was often not predictable and was known to use many different illustrators, but she used Clement Hurd often.  He understood the needs of children for safety and security.  If you read her classic children’s books, Goodnight Moon and Runaway Bunny, you can’t help but fall in love with the wonderful illustrations.

Margaret Wise Brown died in 1952 at the age of 42.  Leonard Marcus, in his biography of her, wrote:  “Nearly everyone spoke of her in heartfelt superlatives, as an “irreplaceable” friend and the most creative person they had ever met.”  She was charming and a one-of-a-kind author.  She could be complicated and even complex, but as one who’s spent hundreds of hours reading stories to young children, I find her absolutely fascinating and a child’s best friend.  Her stories are full of simple wisdom and playfulness, as well as an understanding of the way children view the world.  They’re valued reading on their own, even if you don’t have young children in your life.  They’re absolute joy and pure magic.  What a fascinating author and woman; how I wish I could have met her!