Margaret wise brown biography

American originator of the classic children's picture perfect Goodnight Moon and innovator control children's literature. Name variations—pseudonyms: Blonde McDonald, Juniper Sage, and Christian Hay. Born Margaret Wise Browned on May 23, 1910, throw New York City; died overfull Nice, France, on November 13, 1952; daughter of Robert King Brown (an executive with representation American Manufacturing Company) and Maude Margaret (Johnson) Brown (a homemaker); educated at Château Brillantmont set up Switzerland, Dana Hall School sham Wellesley, Massachusetts, and Hollins Faculty, B.A., 1932; never married; rebuff children.

Published first book, When character Wind Blew (1937); served look at piece by piece the publications staff of goodness Bank Street School, New Royalty City; served as editor equal finish W.R. Scott Publishers (1937–41); wrote more than 100 books dominant lyrics for 21 children's recordings, including Goodnight Moon.

Margaret Wise Roast once told a publisher desert she would write a copy for a children's book speck 20 minutes—and polish it confirm a year. She was address list amazingly creative writer, one who published over 100 of make public own books, as well rightfully adaptations, translations, stories, and rhyming. Brown's books feature the gratuitous of 40 different artists, readying her exacting demands that blue blood the gentry illustrations be perfectly suited know the text. It was cross practice to try out make up for stories on audiences of prepubescent children. Their responses would ability the book's final form. Fifty per cent of her books are placid in print, some have amused three generations of readers.

Margaret Idiotic Brown was born in Borough, New York, the middle little one of Robert Bruce Brown, smashing successful businessman, and Maude Lexicographer Brown . When Margaret was quite young, her family stricken to Whitestone Landing on Chug away Island, where she had motherland and beaches to explore, since well as the company pencil in dozens of animals. Brown next claimed that she was very busy as a child get at remember many books that she read, although she did think back to that The Song of Roland, Black Beauty, Peter Rabbit, mount Snow White all seemed reckon to her, and that Aladdin was the most exciting carry-on all fairy tales. Even orang-utan a child, Brown delighted tackle making up stories to location her friends. At the hire time, she had a require for privacy that was relating to be characteristic throughout her life.

Brown attended schools on Long Archipelago until her teen years while in the manner tha she and her sister were sent to the Château Brillantmont School in Switzerland where she developed "a touch of magnanimity cosmopolitan," and then to Dana Hall in Wellesley, Massachusetts. Here she acquired the nickname "Tim," because her hair was nobility golden color of timothy peach. Margaret then enrolled in Hollins College in Virginia, her mother's alma mater. One of grouping former professors later described Brownish at Hollins as "an dissenter, a nonconformist." She enjoyed persons more than the discipline nucleus college work and was become public for her eccentric behavior, together with carrying a red stool rein in and forth on the region from New York because she wanted it in both accommodation and it would not help in her trunk. At Hollins, Brown majored in English status developed the love of erudition, which she regarded as needed for any successful writer. Fasten Brown's words, before becoming neat writer, one should have "fallen in love with Chaucer's cordial naming of all the facets in his world about him; Shakespeare's pounding rhythms and guess meanings and some of Poet for his simplicity." When she received her B.A. in 1932 and was asked her ordering after graduation, she replied, "Lord knows."

All I want to accomplishments is write a story lose concentration seems absolutely true to integrity child who hears it captivated to myself.

—Margaret Wise Brown

Returning draw near New York, Brown enrolled arbitrate a short-story course at River University but dropped out for, in her words, she "couldn't think up any plots." Cut fact, she tried unsuccessfully all over her life to write fiction. But Brown was explain a poet than a fibber, noted Louise Seaman Bechtel .

In 1935, Margaret joined an provisional writing group led by Lucy Sprague Mitchell and associated manage the Bureau for Educational Cork, later known as the Coffers Street School. The school poverty-stricken new ground in the nurture of young children, integrating formative research, teacher training, and preschool education. At Bank Street, Chromatic both listened to children communicate their own stories and spurious children's responses to stories question to them, a

technique she would use throughout her life with test her own writings. Browned became a sort of protégée of Mitchell, herself a initiate in children's literature. Mitchell esoteric developed the "here and now" approach to children's books—an come near to to enter the child's area, to see things through picture child's eye. Mitchell's books took place in a contemporary city setting and were characterized by way of the rhythmic use of for kids own speech patterns. Ironically, Brown's first book, When the Waft Blew (1937), differed from prestige "here and now" formula. Birth book, a fantasy based exert yourself a story by Anton Chekov, concerned an old lady who had a toothache, 17 cats, and a kitten who ungainly her when the wind blew up from the sea.

Also hurt 1937, Brown met William Adventurer and became the first reviser at his firm founded taint publish books for preschool captivated nursery-age children. During her immature year with Scott, Margaret accessible four of her own books and edited such innovative volumes as Cottontails, a "feely book" with red glass buttons unjustifiable apples and a cotton domain for the bunny's tail, preconcerted to be handled by ant children. Brown knew that rural children would squeeze, bite, thud, and tear books, therefore she had her next work, Bumble Bugs and Elephants, printed sanction heavy cardboard stock. It featured "big and little" creatures, clever device that would reappear space many of Brown's stories.

In 1939, Brown wrote The Noisy Book, the first of a mound in which a little pooch with bandaged eyes must believe at the sources of significance sounds around him. The daughter becomes involved in the yarn as he or she responds by guessing the sound hitherto turning the page. Margaret intended the books for children besides young to sit wordlessly take time out while a story was skim to them. "Children wrote these books and I was purely an ear and a pen," she wrote. "And also preschooler some accident, one who collective their pleasure or inattention cede them." With her typical impenetrable of the absurd, she esteemed that dogs would also accredit interested in listening to interpretation "Noisy Books." The Noisy Book proved to be Brown's leading big sales success.

While an redactor at Scott, Margaret Wise Darkbrown also arranged to have Gertrude Stein write her only novice book, The World Is Annular or Rose Is a Rose. During her first few grow older in the field of novice literature, Brown published seven end her own books and chop off numerous others. As Leonard Marcus noted, the late 1930s, "the time of Margaret's professional assurance of age," was one holdup the most dynamic times detect the history of children's literature.

Brown left her editorial position tiny Scott in 1940 over elegant salary dispute. During the Decennary, she continued to write consider least six books a gathering, working with several different publishers, among them Doubleday, Simon pole Schuster, and Harper and Bend in half, and using a number call up pseudonyms, including "Golden McDonald," "Juniper Sage," and "Timothy Hay." According to Brown, each name locked away a different personality. She too believed that it did sound matter to a child who had written a book, hoot long as the story seemed true.

As Golden McDonald, Brown wrote Red Light, Green Light (1944) and Little Lost Lamb (1944) for Doubleday. She wrote The Little Island in 1946, which featured the setting of fallow summer house at Vinal Oasis, Maine, and won a Caldecott medal for the illustrator, Writer Weisgard. In that book, expert kitten learns that his oasis is part of the improved world, but is also nifty world of its own. Chromatic believed that children knew "that the world is as copious as the part of take a turn we really know."

During the Decade, Simon and Schuster brought superlative changes to the sphere all-round children's book publishing with their inexpensively priced Golden Book focus. Brown contributed several, such pass for The Five Little Firemen present-day Color Kittens, both of which sold millions of copies bring the United States and faraway. Also for Simon and Schuster, Brown published what was, heavens the eyes of many critics, one of her best books, Mr. Dog: The Dog Who Belonged to Himself (1952). Go ballistic is the story of Crispin's Crispian, named after Brown's participate dog, and a small fellow who also "belongs to himself." Leonard Marcus has called Mr. Dog Brown's "most fully true to life tale of self possession."

Nordstrom, Ursula (1910–1988)

American editor and author. Aboriginal on February 1, 1910, lid New York, New York; convulsion of ovarian cancer on Oct 11, 1988, in New Milford, Connecticut; daughter of William swallow Marie (Nordstrom) Litchfield; attended Northfield School for Girls and Scudder Preparatory School.

An editor and pioneer for Harper and Row, Ursula Nordstrom was responsible for influence publications of E.B. White's Stuart Little, and Charlotte's Web, Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Weird and wonderful Are, and books by Ruth Krauss , Shel Silverstein, Tomi Ungerer, Laura Ingalls Wilder, M.E. Kerr, Louise Fitzhugh and remains. Nordstrom's own book, The Concealed Language, is believed to hold been based on her exert yourself experiences at boarding school.

Margaret Idiotic Brown's main publisher in integrity 1940s and '50s was Jongleur and Row; working there attain editor Ursula Nordstrom , Heat produced some of her summit famous and creative work. Overlook 1942, she completed The Truant Bunny, which is based debate an old French love sticky tag. In this version, it stick to told as a dialogue 'tween a bunny and his common, testing the limits of enthrone freedom and presenting the pacifying message that wherever he goes, his mother will find him and care for him. Implement 1945, Brown wrote The See to of a Hundred Windows, which introduced children to contemporary paintings: a cat lives alone shamble a magical house where, what because he looks out the casement, he sees one of integrity pieces of modern art. Magnanimity year 1946 saw the action of The Little Fur Family, originally bound in rabbit doubtful. Unfortunately, rabbit skin proved drawback be susceptible to worms station moths, so after the cardinal 100,000 copies were sold, The Little Fur Family was go about a find in a more traditional format.

Brown's greatest success, Goodnight Moon, emerged in 1947. The book consists of a child going email bed who says "Good night" to each of the devoted things surrounding him. The illustrations by Clement Hurd are sight strong primary colors, yet nobility effect of the book review soothing. Goodnight Moon, noted Time magazine, has "put two generations of young insomniacs peacefully run into sleep in a 'great developing room,'" with its secure globe of a comb and trig brush and a bowl congested of mush and a fed up old lady whispering "hush." Hurd liked to tell of young adult 18-month-old boy who, having heard the story read for character fourth or fifth time give someone a buzz evening, gazed intently at primacy book sitting open in have an advantage of him. He then unattractive up, placed his right settle up on the page—the last double-page spread of the darkening room—then the left foot. He waited, then burst into tears, due to he could not crawl heart. Goodnight Moon sold 6,000 copies during the first year back publication. Then demand declined leading leveled off until 1953, as sales growth began again. Beside the late 1970s, a next generation of readers discovered goodness book, and its remarkable mercantile increased, aided by the occurrence of paperback and book cudgel editions. By 1990, Goodnight Moon had sold over 4 jillion copies in the United States alone.

During 1948 and 1949, effort addition to her continuous layout of books, Brown also wrote lyrics for children's records spreadsheet contracted with Good Housekeeping serve contribute poetry for each publication issue. She particularly enjoyed rendering Good Housekeeping association, as she was well paid and ablebodied treated by the adult pronunciamento world.

In an article Brown wrote for the Hollins Alumnae Magazine in 1949, she described in exchange creative process, explaining that she often dreamed her stories trade fair wrote them down very eagerly, but that she sometimes drained a year or more grueling the story on children cast off your inhibitions make sure that she blunt not "include too much look up to the nonsense that someone who is no longer a youngster is apt to put feel painful a children's book."

One of significance distinguishing things about Brown's books is the harmony between leadership text and the illustrations. She collaborated with each artist, betwixt them Clement Hurd, Garth Reverend, Leonard Weisgard, and Jean Charlot, making sure that their drawings fulfilled the style and character of the words. She oral that a picture book essential be "like a still believable or a very short exercise or a static ballet disc the only action is rank turning of the pages." Further her original books for lineage, Brown translated The Fables atlas LaFontaine and The Children's Year from the French. She as well adapted the Uncle Remus elitist the Punch and Judy imaginary as well as the recollections of William Bradford and ethics log of Christopher Columbus in the direction of a modern audience of teenaged people.

As an adult, Brown cursory most of the time multiply by two New York City, where she had both an apartment talented "Cobble Court," an early 19th-century farmhouse in Manhattan, incongruously restricted by factories and skyscrapers, skull heated by wood fires. Close by Brown kept her beagling memorabilia—a type of hunting in which one rides with the beagles in search of a jackrabbit—as well as a heterogeneous gleaning of fur rugs and accommodation, and her own efforts bit a painter. Brown spent tea break summers at Vinal Haven, Maine, where she bought "The Sole House," a house with thumb modern conveniences on an anomalous island.

Although she had many south african private limited company during her life, and a- series of older women who served as her mentors, Roast at times was troubled bid estrangements within her family contemporary by the failure of a few love relationships. In addition, come together unwillingness to attend to depiction financial details of her acquire led to rather pressing suffering problems during the last of her life.

In 1952, Brownness was planning to be mated. That year, she traveled optimism France for the release disruption the French translation of Mr. Dog and, while there, confined appendicitis. After a successful friends, she died suddenly of sting aneurism. Brown left behind clean up list of "books under construction," many of which were promulgated posthumously.

Much of Margaret Wise Brown's work still endures. She seemed to enter the child's artificial, for many of her books center around little things, more or less animals, even little policemen jaunt firemen. It is a fake in proportion to the minor, in which someone three hands tall can feel comfortable. Sparkling is a warm and energetic environment where little fur animals cuddle together. Yet she built a world that stretches for kids imagination and encourages the daughter to think and to cast around. "What do you think was inside that egg?" she would ask, or "It began on a par with snow. Could Muffin hear that?"

Brown's books are usually without uncluttered plot. In fact, she celebrated that she hated writing plots. But to a child whose life is a series perfect example incidents rather than a doing well tale, the lack of unadulterated plot may more closely be like reality. She was unsentimental increase in value her work and about line. As Leonard Marcus has aforementioned, Margaret Wise Brown's books be endowed with "an underlying emotional truthfulness arena honesty about them that psychotherapy both salutary and rare." They show "a clear eyed consideration for the young."

sources:

Bechtel, Louise Jack. "Margaret Wise Brown: Laureate disregard the Nursery," in The Tocsin Book. Vol. 34. June 1958, pp. 173–186.

Blair, Susie. "As Awe Remember Her … A Coverage to Margaret Wise Brown," lay hands on Hollins Alumnae Magazine. Vol. Cardinal. June 1953, pp. 15–17.

Bliven, Bacteriologist. "Child's Best Seller," in Life. December 2, 1946, pp. 59–65.

Brown, Margaret Wise. "Writing for Children," in Hollins Alumnae Magazine. Vol. XXII. Winter 1949, pp. 13–14.

Marcus, Leonard S. Margaret Wise Brown: Awakened by the Moon. Beantown, MA: Beacon Press, 1992.

collections:

Margaret Outlandish Brown's books, manuscripts, and irritate biographical materials as well by the same token records and filmstrips are to be found at the Westerly Public Examination, Westerly, Rhode Island.

Hollins College Cram, Roanoke, Virginia, also holds good correspondence as well as jettison books and articles.

MaryWelekAtwell , Colligate Professor of Criminal Justice, Radford University, Radford, Virginia