Sunday, December 04, 2005

In this article, Karen Karbo mocks political correctness in the publisher's decision to digitally remove a cigarette from the author's photo in new copies of the children's classic Goodnight, Moon.

Well, whatever. This is a great book. It chokes me up every time I read it.

But there is also something disturbing about the pictures. Has anyone else noticed the following odd things in the child bunny's bedroom:

a. a fireplace
b. a telephone
c. an expensive clock
d. a bookshelf full of hardbound books of various editions

Who puts a telephone in a child's bedroom? It would just wake him up. Who gives a child a room this large? With a fireplace? With burning logs? And two clocks?

There's another clue: the "quiet old lady ... whispering hush."

What I get out of this setup is that she is the child's grandmother. And she is putting up the child bunny in a bedroom meant for adults because those adults are not there.

The parents are not there. And the child is terrified of everything. "Goodnight nobody... goodnight noises everywhere."

The child bunny isn't just visiting. The room has been turned into a child's bedroom. There are now paintings of the cow jumping over the moon and the three little bears. There's a red balloon and a doll's house (with, curiously, the lights on inside.)

I don't think the parents are coming back.

It is a lovely book. But sometimes it scares me.

Tags: children's books; children; Goodnight, Moon

1:40 PM

3 Comments:

Oh Great, Alex. %#$@#$^ great.
Thanks. I really needed to discover the sad, scary subtext at the heart of Goodnight Moon.


YOU OWE ME VODKA.

By  DMc, at 12:14 PM  

Don't even get me started about Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree.

By  Alex Epstein, at 12:20 PM  

Giving schmiving. That tree knew what it was getting into. It wasn't some poor traumatized orphan rabbit. THAT is some F.U.S.

By  DMc, at 12:53 PM  

Post a Comment

Back to Complications Ensue main blog page.