In the Great Green Room: The Brilliant and Bold Life of Margaret Wise Brown

 

Summary (from the publisher): 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.

Margaret’s books have sold millions of copies all over the world, but few people know that she was at the center of a children’s book publishing revolution. Her whimsy and imagination fueled a steady stream of stories, book ideas, songs, and poems and she was renowned for her prolific writing and business savvy, as well as her stunning beauty and endless thirst for adventure.

Margaret started her writing career by helping to shape the curriculum for the Bank Street School for children, making it her mission to create stories that would rise above traditional fairy tales and allowed girls to see themselves as equal to boys. At the same time, she also experimented endlessly with her own writing. Margaret would spend days researching subjects, picking daisies, cloud gazing, and observing nature, all in an effort to precisely capture a child’s sense of awe and wonder as they discovered the world.

Clever, quirky, and incredibly talented, Margaret embraced life with passion, lived extravagantly off of her royalties, went on rabbit hunts, and carried on long and troubled love affairs with both men and women. Among them were two great loves in Margaret’s life. One was a gender-bending poet and the ex-wife of John Barrymore. She went by the stage name of Michael Strange and she and Margaret had a tempestuous yet secret relationship, at one point living next door to each other so that they could be together. After the dissolution of their relationship and Michael’s death, Margaret became engaged to a younger man, who also happened to be the son of a Rockefeller and a Carnegie. But before they could marry Margaret died unexpectedly at the age of forty-two, leaving behind a cache of unpublished work and a timeless collection of books that would go on become classics in children’s literature.

In In the Great Green Room, author Amy Gary captures the eccentric and exceptional life of Margaret Wise Brown, and drawing on newly-discovered personal letters and diaries, reveals an intimate portrait of a creative genius whose unrivaled talent breathed new life in to the literary world.

Review: Born in 1910, Margaret Wise Brown came from a family of strong, innovative women and was encouraged by her father to follow in their stead. Rather than marrying and settling down with a family like many of her peers, she went on to transform children's literature. With creative ideas like lift the flaps, shaped books, and other playful details, she called on children's imaginations and playful spirits that helped sell millions of copies of her books, including two of her bestsellers Goodnight Moon and The Runaway Bunny. But despite all her success, Margaret was privately always disappointed in herself for failing to produce more adult writing and her love life was a winding path of married lovers and other disappointments rather than the traditional marriage and family that she had envisioned as a child. And her life was cut dramatically short before she was able to realize many of her dreams.  

In this book, Margaret Wise Brown comes across as a charming, luminous individual with a vast sea of creativity. She was prolific and left behind a literal trunk full of unpublished materials. She easily supported herself by her writing and whenever she needed funds would simply whip out another book. She had a similar approach to her relationships and homes and could easily recreate herself and her direction as needed. She was masterful at creating cozy, charming abodes in hole in the wall homes. In particular, her studio in New York City and Maine home seemed absolutely charming and a delightful place for her guests and family to visit. I loved reading about her childhood and time at Hollins College. Much time in the book is devoted to her dating life, which was principally dominated by her two great loves, one to a married man and one to a woman who was scathing and cruel in her treatment of Margaret. Socially, both relationships were doomed from the start. Sadly, her final relationship before her death seemed like the true, deep love she always dreamed of but was cut tragically short by her death. 

Having read Goodnight Moon hundreds, if not thousands, of times, I loved getting to know more about the woman behind the books. She has brought joy to thousands of children with her creative designs and poetic writing that helped revolutionize children's literature and whose effects within children's publishing are still felt to this day. At times I did question the style of this biography that has no direct quotes from Margaret herself and doesn't reference sources or basis of knowledge in the text itself. It would have been nice to hear from Margaret herself at least occasionally throughout. The book reads more like a novel with descriptive language describing the settings, weather, etc: "The moon and sky over Brooklyn, New York, was bathed in the golden hue of an aurora borealis in the early morning hours of May 23. Sheet lightning to the south and east illuminated the shifting rays in a staccato dance of light" (7). While it certainly made the book more readable and enjoyable, it did seem a bit questionable in accuracy to include this descriptive, novelistic flair. 

Stars: 4