With such aspirations, it’s no wonder she was drawn to Michael: actress, socialite, and bestselling author of an erotic poetry collection based on her affair and eventual marriage with movie star John Barrymore. And, buoyed by familial wealth, she was able to pursue this dream even as the world around her plunged into The Great Depression and the Second World War. From a young age, Margaret dreamt of becoming a writer, with literary idols like Gertrude Stein.
It was during this time that she began writing books for children. In 1932, after receiving a bachelors in English, Brown worked as a teacher in Manhattan. The book’s plot also mirrored Brown’s nightly childhood ritual of saying goodnight to the objects in her bedroom in the book an anthropomorphic bunny’s recites a “goodnight poem,” a lilting rhyme which addresses a red balloon, a picture of the cow jumping over the moon, a young mouse, and a bowl of mush the bunny uses the poem to send them off to sleep.īorn in 1910 in Brooklyn, NY, Margaret was raised in a wealthy household by parents that supported her intellectual curiosity. While Brown was writing her magnum opus of children’s literature, she painted her own gifted bedroom green and yellow and covered her poster bed in red velvet.īrown’s new apartment mirrored her famous children’s book. But if you wade deeper into the author’s life- as Amy Gary did in her 2017 biography In the Great Green Room: The Brilliant and Bold Life of Margaret Wise Brown you’ll find another green room: Brown’s New York City apartment, gifted to her by her lover, actress, and poet Blanche Oelrichs, who was known by her nom de plume, Michael Strange. If you look no further, this appears to be a perfect illustration of Brown’s approach to writing, a practice which involved donning a childlike perspective. In her vision, her childhood bedroom took on the color scheme of her downstairs neighbors apartment, turning red, yellow, and green.
‘Goodnight Moon’ and the Queer Love Story of the Great Green RoomĪuthor Margaret Wise often stated that the inspiration for the great green room, in her beloved children’s book Goodnight Moon, came to her in a dream.
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