>> Clay Smith: Hey, everybody.
Welcome to the "Please
read me a story stage".
I'm Clay Smith.
I'm the literary director
at the Library of Congress.
Thrilled to see everybody here.
This, of course, is Mac Barnett,
who's written many, many...
>> Mac Barnett: All right,
let's hear it for Clay.
First, Clay puts
this festival on.
[Applause]
>> Clay Smith: What?
You've written, like 300.
>> Mac Barnett:
That's about right.
>> Clay Smith: So who
loves "Goodnight Moon"?
Who loves it? Okay.
I see a little bit of
enthusiasm out there.
It's the 75th anniversary of
"Goodnight Moon".
Mac actually wrote
"Goodnight Moon".
Mac is 75, and though 76.
>> Mac Barnett:I wrote it.
Yeah, I wrote it at year one.
>> Clay Smith: Yeah.
So we're going to talk a little
bit about "Goodnight Moon".
And Mac also has written this
really beautiful picture book.
The important thing about
Margaret Wise Brown.
Yeah. And of course,
Margaret Wise Brown is the
author of "Goodnight Moon".
So we're going to talk
about the book.
We're going to talk about her
and a lot of good stuff.
And we will have time
for your questions.
So I'll be thinking of those.
Do you want to read for us from
"Goodnight Moon"?
>> Mac Barnett: Yeah.
Yeah. To start off so we know
what we're talking about.
Yeah. How many people have read
"Goodnight Moon"?
All right. And we got...
I want to see again who loves
"Goodnight Moon".
Raise your. Does anybody not
like "Goodnight Moon"?
All right. I love it.
>> Clay Smith: Did anybody at
the age of two or three sort of
nibble on their copy
of "Goodnight Moon"?
>> Mac Barnett: Yeah. Who likes
the way "Goodnight Moon" tastes?
So to celebrate the 75th
anniversary of the publication
of "Goodnight Moon,"
which I believe
is not only this year,
but is today.
>> Clay Smith: Yeah.
>> Mac Barnett: We got no
better way to do it than
to read this book out loud
to you right now.
And by the end, hopefully
everybody's going to be asleep
and we're not
going to have to do
the back half of
our presentation.
So, here we go.
>> Clay Smith: Very easy.
>> Mac Barnett: "Goodnight Moon"
by Margaret Wise Brown.
Pictures by Clement Hurd.
In the great green room,
there was a telephone
and a red balloon
and a picture of the cow
jumping over the moon.
And there were three little
bears sitting on chairs
and two little kittens
and a pair of mittens
and a little toy house
and a young mouse
and a comb and a brush
and a bowlful of mush
and a quiet old lady
who was whispering, Hush.
Good night room.
Good night, Moon.
Good night Cow
jumping over the moon.
Good night, Light
and the red balloon.
Good night, bears.
Good night, Chairs.
Good night, kittens.
And good night, Mittens.
Good night clocks.
And good night, socks.
Good night, little house.
And goodnight, Mouse.
Good night comb
and good night, brush.
Good night, Nobody.
Good night, mush.
And good night to the old lady
whispering Hush.
Good night, stars.
Good night, Air.
Good night Noises Everywhere.
The end. Oh, no, little
promo also available.
>> Clay Smith:
So tell us a little
bit about "Goodnight Moon."
Like, what was so revolutionary?
How did it change picture books?
>> Mac Barnett: I think that
Margaret Wise Brown herself
is to me, the reason
I wrote this book is
because she is such
a revolutionary figure
in picture books, particularly
as a picture book author.
And that's something I relate
to. I love picture books.
It's my favorite form.
I love to write them.
I don't draw, I don't paint.
Margaret Wise Brown to me,
is sort of a first great
picture book author,
somebody who conceived
of a picture book
as a combination of text
and image, working together
and wasn't able
to do the pictures,
but created these
beautiful texts
that were meant
to be illustrated.
She's--I think, one of
America's great poets.
And it just so happens that she
applied her talent for poetry
to books for children.
She sort of always
loved writing,
always wanted to be a writer,
didn't know what kind of writing
she wanted to do,
loved poetry,
but ended up studying at the
Bank Street School of Education,
which was and still is,
an experimental school,
a lab school in New York
City, a great school
that at the time Margaret
Wise Brown was studying there,
was at the forefront of not
just an educational philosophy,
but what turned out
to be a philosophy
for picture books and
writing for children,
which was called the
Here and Now school,
that said that rather than fairy
tales and and sweet stories
about childhood innocence
and moral instruction,
books should be about the
things that kids see and hear.
There should be trucks in books,
the sounds of the city
should be in books, the animals
on farms should be in books.
We should write about kids
actual experiences.
Margaret Brennan was studying
to be a teacher
and her evaluations
were so funny.
People would be like, You know,
she's not like the best teacher
in the world, but she loves
kids and the kids love her
and she just sits there
and talks to them and they--
they just love talking to her.
She's not really meeting
the pedagogical standards,
but she's conversing with them
on this level that
it's their level.
And that, of course, that's the
difference between my job and
the job of a teacher
where something different.
And that's actually a phrase
that Margaret Wise Brown used
when describing picture books
as opposed to teaching.
She said writing for children
is something different
and she was a great
conversationalist with kids.
I think "Goodnight Moon" to me,
the reason this book is--
is so woven into the fabric of
the culture of American
childhoodis is because
it is such a
beautiful understanding
of the complexity
of going to bed.
I think that going to bed
is a really it's a weird time
when you're a kid. I was--
I was scared to go to bed.
To sleep is so odd.
It's still so odd when you
think about it.
It's a letting go.
It's--it's--it's scary.
And I think that--that it's kind
of you know, I used to like
when I would lie awake at night,
I'd be like, What is sleep?
And what if I didn't wake up?
Like, is that possible?
Does that happen?
These are things that kids
think about late at night.
By late at night.
I mean, like 7:30 p.m.
And I think that this book
acknowledges that.
It acknowledges that scariness,
and it's comforting
both in its structure,
its poem, its language,
the incantatory nature,
which is always that
that sort of that chant you do
to comfort yourself,
but also in the way that it
does acknowledge the abyss.
It acknowledges
those weird moments.
Goodnight, nobody.
What an amazing phrase and
what an amazing picture.
A picture of nothing.
That's the abyss.
That's the end.
We--we have a page
of nothing in this picture
book, Goodnight Air.
And then there's just
some good jokes in there.
Goodnight, mush.
So it really has everything.
It's such a radical
book and I think that
it's ubiquity can kind of
hide the fact that this is--
this is like a weird
experimental poem
that's also, to me,
a confirmation of kids
great literary tastes
that the fact that.
"Week on week", "Goodnight Moon"
and "Where the Wild Things Are"
are some of the most bought,
most read books by children.
That's the equivalent of like
"Goodnight Moon" is like
if the Collected Poems of Emily
Dickinson were number one
on the best seller
list every week
and adults read it every night,
that's not the case.
We don't. This is a smart,
sophisticated book
that kids love and
know and understand
and just proves their taste
in real literature, I think.
>> Clay Smith: Do you--were you
read "Goodnight Moon" as a kid?
>> Mac Barnett:
Yes, I was, yeah.
>> Clay Smith: Do
you remember that?
>> Mac Barnett: Very vividly.
I very vividly remember it.
Both--Both the rhythm of it.
But also, I should acknowledge
Clement Hurd's amazing art, too.
Those colors are so unreal
and were unreal at the time.
Nothing looks like that book
and that physical space,
the Great Green Room,
which, by the way,
and thank you for
putting these curtains up
just for our presentation.
I really appreciate that.
Like inhabiting that space.
I remember being in--in
the physical space
of the great green room and
kind of going to sleep there.
It was like
I lived inside this book.
>> Clay Smith: Yeah. I mean,
as you were reading it,
I was, you know, it's so
hard to remember things
from when we were three or four,
but I remember mush because
I thought that was so funny
because we didn't, we called it
oatmeal and Mice.
So I didn't know what mush was.
And yeah, just that feeling of
sort of acknowledging
the scariness.
It's so--it's so--so
meaningful and it's meant
so much to so many kids
over so 75 years, in fact.
So Marker Wise Brown, tell us
a little bit more about her.
We know she wasn't
a great teacher.
Yes, she was a great picture
book writer.
>> Mac Barnett:
Great picture book writer.
>> Clay Smith: She died
kind of early, right?
>> Mac Barnett:
She did. She died.
She died very young.
She died at age 42.
She was going to get married
and took a steamship to France,
where she was going to meet her
fiancee and get married.
And on that boat trip,
she got to France
and she needed some
medical treatment.
When she arrived,
she was laid up,
had a surgery,
laid up in France.
And after being like a check in,
doctor coming in and saying,
how are you doing?
She got off her bed
where she was doing bed rest
and said, "I feel great, Look."
And a very like kind of
vivacious Margaret Wise Brown
fashion kicked
her leg in the air
and dislodged a blood clot
and died right there.
And yeah, very young.
She wrote more than 100 books,
but she would have
written so many more.
Yeah, it's--it's--
it's--it was--
it was very sudden.
In her time she was a very
famous picture book writer.
But "Goodnight Moon"
was not a famous book.
It didn't do very well.
It was fine.
It was sort of its
sales were middling,
but it was only
after she died that
it started really
picking up steam
and becoming this book that was.
>> Clay Smith: And why
do we know? Why was that?
>> Mac Barnett: I think it's for
a lot of reasons, a big reason.
And this is something that
we talk about in this book.
At the center of the important
thing about Margaret Wise Brown
is--is this sort of
philosophical battle
between Margaret Wise Brown
and Ann Carol Moore,
who was the head of
the New York Public Library.
She was a children's librarian.
And she really comes in,
deservedly comes in for it
in this picture book.
But I should say
that she also really changed
children's librarianship.
And in a lot of ways, it was
very important to her.
She built a beautiful
children's room
at the New York Public Library
with shelves that
were accessible to kids
and tables that
were the right size,
let kids get library cards.
But she also had a very
firm belief that that
kids books and picture books
she loved fairy tales.
And I love fairy
tales, by the way,
but she had a very
narrow idea of
what a picture book should be,
one that that kind of
coddled kids in innocence
and anything that
deviated from that
she would not purchase for the
New York Public Library.
And because she was so
influential,
basically her
purchases influenced
what libraries across
the country would do.
And at that time, you know,
there were bookshops, but
libraries were at the center of
how kids found new books.
She famously had a stamp in her
desk, and when she would read
a book that she wouldn't like,
she would stamp it.
Not recommended for
purchase by expert.
>> Clay Smith: I
have that stamped.
>> Mac Barnett: You
know. I actually do.
The illustrator of this book,
Sarah Jacoby, made us stamps.
Yeah. So she did not like
"Goodnight Moon".
She didn't like the here
and now school generally.
I should say that I think one
reason Margaret Wise Brown is
such a great author too, is
that this time where you have
these two competing
philosophies of
what a picture book
should be very rigid.
One was, you know,
backward looking
and focused on
childhood innocence,
the other one modernist
and rooted in realism.
Even though Margaret Wise Brown
comes up through
the Bank Street school and
influenced by the here
and now school.
She rejects both of those.
She does whatever she wants.
She takes a little from over
here, a little from over there.
She's not going to be
bound to any orthodoxy.
And you can see that
in her work.
She rejects that and
just does what she thinks
is the best for the story.
That said, Ann Carol
Moore did not like her work,
didn't like "Goodnight Moon",
didn't buy it, was against it.
And that was a big reason
that I think it suffered.
I think it was only until
kind of kids who grew up
with "Goodnight Moon" and
that initially those kids
who got it in the way that
this book sticks in your memory,
I think it's stuck
in theirs in the way
that we like to buy books.
That meant a lot to us as kids.
It grew over generations to
the thing that it was today,
but it was published in 1947.
Did not make it into the New
York Public Library's collection
until 1972.
Long after Ann Carol
Moore had died too.
>> Clay Smith: Bad news.
So Margaret Wise
Brown is a legend
and the children's book World.
Were you nervous writing
about her and..
>> Mac Barnett: So nervous
writing about her?
I don't write nonfiction
generally.
She means so much to me.
Writing about a real
person is hard.
I also am like, not the biggest
fan of biography
as a genre generally.
>> Clay Smith: She's not
going to go to the history
and biography stage today.
>> Mac Barnett: It won't be--
You won't find me there.
>> Clay Smith: Yeah.
>> Mac Barnett: Because I think
that it's--it's very hard
to encapsulate
somebody's life in a book,
especially, you know,
there's a tendency
to try to explain why people
write the things they did
or paint the paintings they
paint like biographies of
creative people are always
looking for like,
this is why the
book is that way.
And in a picture book,
particularly like
a picture book is so short.
How do you capture somebody's
life in a picture book?
And I think that
anxiety is all over.
The important thing about
Margaret Wise Brown, it's really
motivated by the anxiety of
trying to fit
somebody's entire
life into 42 pages.
>> Clay Smith: Yeah.
And you have kids?
>> Mac Barnett: Yes, I have a
15 month old.
>> Clay Smith: Okay. So
you'll be reading them
"Goodnight Moon".
And then immediately afterward,
you'll follow it up with the
important thing about...
>> Mac Barnett: Absolutely.
We pump Mac Barnett books
hard in my house.
I--actually it's
funny you said.
So my son is 15 months old.
I just read him
a book that I wrote
for the first time last week.
I'd been, like, avoiding it
because I'm just so scared that
he's not going to be into it.
Yeah, it feels weird.
It also feels weird to just be
like, all right, here we go.
>> Clay Smith: Yeah.
>> Mac Barnett:
Special treat tonight.
>> Clay Smith: Yeah.
From your father.
It doesn't matter what,
like Publishers Weekly
or Kirkus Reviews or
New York Times says
it's really what your children.
>> Mac Barnett: That's right.
>> Clay Smith: Say
about your books. Yeah.
So what questions does
everybody have for Mac?
We've got some
microphones up here.
I think we've got
someone here in the front.
You want to go ahead
and say it and oh! oh!
>> Mac Barnett: Mm. Yeah.
Yeah.
>> Clay Smith: Yeah.
So the question is
so everybody can hear.
She was asking about
what--what is Mac feel
is the difference between
"Goodnight Moon"
and "Runaway Bunny",
which is another
Margaret Wise Brown book.
>> Mac Barnett: Yeah.
The Runaway Bunny is--
is a famous
Margaret Wise Brown book
that is based on like a kind of
a classic story structure
that she takes and
adapts for her own.
But it's--it's a
bunny saying like,
I'm going to run
away and do this.
And the mom's like,
when you do this,
I'm going to find you this way.
And the bunny is like,
and then I'll do this.
And the mom's like, I'm
going to be right there.
Yeah, I think it is. I agree.
It's sort of a scary story.
It's one that to me, like
"The Giving Tree"
is about a dynamic
that doesn't feel
like a healthy dynamic.
Actually, both books are,
I think, often read into me
misread as like expressions of
love, parental love,
caregiver love,
adult love for kids.
I think both are like there's
something sour to both of those
relationships and both the tree
and the boy
and the two rabbits
and runaway bunny.
And actually that's--that's what
I think is cool about that book.
I think--I think
it captures I agree.
Like you said, you feel like
it's a little scary, that book.
I think it is, too.
I think maybe--maybe
the--the--the
little bunny needs
some more freedom.
Get--get express for
his full bunny hood.
>> Helicopter parent.
Helicopter parent.
Yeah, that's right.
Like literally like the
bunny becomes like a cloud
at one point hovering
over in the kid.
>> Clay Smith: We've got a
young lady over here at the mic.
>> MEMBER OF AUDIENCE:
What's your favorite
Margaret Wise Brown book.
>> Mac Barnett:
What's my favorite
Margaret Wise Brown book.
Oh, I'm so glad you asked.
My favorite Margaret Wise Brown
book is called
They all saw it".
It's very hard to find.
It's out of print and it's
a bunch of photographs.
And actually the photographs
were already taken.
There was a photographer and
she--she was very good at
taking pictures of animals.
So she had a big stack of her
photographs
of all these animals.
And Margaret Wise
Brown's editor, said,
"Come in and look
at these pictures and see
if you can
write a story around it."
So the pictures came first
and Margaret Wise Brown
had to make a story
that is so hard to do.
And I think the story is so
funny and surprising.
I love it. It's hard to find,
but I think that
there is a copy.
Well, there's a video of me
reading it out loud on YouTube
so you can check it out if you
can't find your own copy.
And--and I also--I don't know
if I should be saying that
at the Library of Congress,
which is very devoted to
copyright being.
[Laughing]
Check it out.
>> Clay Smith: Okay. Thank you.
What other. Okay,
we've got one over here.
[Inaudible]
>> Mac Barnett: Oh, like
according to my kids age,
while I keep doing that,
that's such a good question.
So the question was like, am I
going to keep writing books?
Like as my kid grows
up while I write books
that are sort of
aimed toward him?
That might happen a little bit,
but I already write basically,
I think from probably I write
picture books that are read to
very young kids up until
they like 12, 13, 14
sort of the range that
I'm most comfortable in
and I write all across that age.
So I think I'll probably
keep doing that.
That said, I'm sure that like
the stories that I tell him
and then also the stories
that he tells me are going to
influence the things
that I write for sure.
Yeah, that may happen,
but I'll probably keep writing
for all ages anyway, because
I'm writing for
more than just my kids.
My job as a dad is
actually so different
from my job as an author, and I
have sort of a different set of
obligations to--to kids who are
reading my books
and then to my own
son. And sometimes
those obligations
are sort of like,
you know, things
that I might not
want him to do
in--in--in the house.
I will write books about like,
wouldn't it be funny
if a character did this thing
and I'm going to still
write those kinds of books?
>> Clay Smith:
Yeah, you have to.
Okay, so we've got one question
back here, and then we can go to
the front over here. Okay? Yeah.
>> MEMBER OF AUDIENCE:
Hi. I'm a school librarian.
>> Mac Barnett: Hi. Yeah.
[Applause]
>> MEMBER OF AUDIENCE: And--and
I'm your number one fan.
I stalk you all over the place.
>> Mac Barnett: It's great
to see you again.
>> MEMBER OF AUDIENCE:
Extra yarn changed my life.
As a school librarian, I want
to thank you for that.
I just wanted to share a story.
I'm also a mom, of course,
and when my son was small,
of course I read
"Goodnight Moon".
At that time in my job,
I was traveling a lot.
And when I would leave, he
would often have nightmares
about a bear in a chair
sitting in the living room.
And my husband would have
a hard time, you know,
figuring out how to comfort him.
And it wasn't until years later
where I realized
where the bears
and chairs came from.
To this day, he can't stand
"Goodnight Moon".
So, you know, as somebody
who's very interested in
reducing generational trauma,
I don't think he'll be
reading it to his kids.
[Laughing]
>> Mac Barnett:
That's a great story.
Thank you for sharing that one.
>> Clay Smith: And now
for a different take
on "Goodnight Moon".
Okay, we've got a young lady
down here.
What is your question?
[Inaudible]
>> Mac Barnett: What's my...
What do you say?
What's my favorite
part of "Goodnight Moon"?
That's a good question.
Let's see my favorite part of
"Goodnight Moon".
I'm going to tell it like my
favorite one page is the one
that I talked about.
Goodnight, Nobody
and nothing being there.
I think that's so cool.
Such a great idea.
And I think you can see me
playing with that idea
in some picture books
that I write.
But another thing
that I love about the book
is the way that in the
pictures it can sort of mimic,
you know, when you're like
fading in and out of sleep
and like you sort of you go into
dreams and then you're in your
room again and then
you're into dreams.
I think the pictures in that
book do that, too.
If you look really closely like
the old lady who's in the chair
in the corner is there,
and then she's gone
and then she's back
and things in the room
sort of disappear and reappear.
And it's very odd.
It's a wild thing to do,
but I think it's on purpose
because I think that--
that's what it
feels like to go to sleep.
And I think that's a very cool,
very experimental idea as well.
>> Clay Smith: Yeah.
We probably have time
for one more question.
We've got a young
man right here.
What is your question?
[Inaudible]
>> Mac Barnett: Oh,
what a good question.
Am I writing another
shape's book?
Thank you so much for asking.
So I have to give kind of
a weird answer to this.
We've been working
on some shape stories.
Yes, some more shape stories.
So if you like those--if you
like those--those books,
I think there'll be some more
shapes stories for you soon.
>> Clay Smith: Good news.
Okay. Well, we've got to end it
there on that good news.
I think Mac has already
signed books today.
Is that right? Yeah.
But let's thank Mac
for being here.
>> Mac Barnett: Oh,
thanks for coming out
and celebrating this book.
75th anniversary.
[Applause]
>> Clay Smith: And thank you all
for being here
and enjoy the festival.
>> Mac Barnett: Thank you, Clay.
>> Clay Smith: Yeah.