Writing a Non-Stupid Kids' Book Is Harder Than it Looks

How many times have you read a six-page children's book at bedtime (to your kid or to yourself—no judgments) and thought, "I could've done that." But of course, like any work that seems simple but manages to linger for years, decades, centuries: It's not all that easy. At least, not in that head-slapping, any-idiot-could-do-that way.  Writing a good children's book, especially one that survives generation after generation (not to mention sells millions of copies), takes a certain kind of genius.

Granted, the really bad children's books are pretty easy to write. (Ever see the Tonka Chuck & Friends book series? A cute blue tow-truck with absolutely no insight or wit about anything does not a great narrator make.) In any event, the ultimate kids'-book-that-looks-easy would have to be Goodnight Moon, Margaret Wise Brown's 1947 meditation on bedtime, and on all the things kids notice around them as they drift off to sleep. 

The first time I read it I thought, what's the big deal about this book? I was younger then—though obviously not as astute as a toddler—and most certainly overcaffeinated, impatient, sleep-deprived. But lately, Goodnight Moon gets more and more hypnotic every time I read it to my kids, its simplicity and poetry ringing truer and ever more beautiful. And those saturated colors on the pages: delicious, mesmerizing, epic. There's a reason why the book has sold more than 48 million copies, according to Smithsonian Mag.

A while back I had come across a fascinating little biographical note about Margaret Wise Brown, and learned that she'd died at 42, among other facts (including that her brief engagement to a Rockefeller ended tragically), but I never read up on her life. Earlier this year a biography of her (In the Great Green Room by Amy Gary) came out, revealing more tantalizing details about her life; it's on my must-read list. For one thing, it turns out that despite writing more than 100 children's books, Brown, who didn't have children of her own, didn't even like kids that much. She guarded her independence and wasn't one for domestic life, though her love affairs were intense and she had both men and women lovers. And damn was she glamorous.

As for that unmatched instinct for what kids would want to hear about? (I say unmatched because there's no book my 2- and 4-year-old have asked for more consistently at bedtime.) It turns out that her books weren't based purely on instinct: Brown trained at the groundbreaking New York institution, the Bureau of Educational Experiments’ Cooperative School for Student Teachers, now known as Bank Street, and studied ways of capturing kids' attention and seeing what they see. But the wisdom, the poetry, and the spirit of Brown's books are her own, the byproducts of an uncanny empathy and a knack for perceiving the little details that matter.

NPR aptly summarizes the message in Brown's books this way: "The world is measureless and vast. Live in it with curiosity and intensity. And bring snacks."