Margaret Wise Brown was born in 1910, and she died from an embolism 42 years later.

By 2022, she would have been 112-years-old. That puts things in perspective for me. Brown was born before World War I began, and she died slowly after World War II ended. She lived during the time of the Great Depression, but I doubt if her wealthy family was affected much by what was a financial setback for most of the rest of the people in the USA.

Before she began writing picture books, she essentially lived off her allowance, but her father encouraged her to seek some type of income for herself.

When she was 27, her first picture book was published. For most of the rest of her short life, at least one of her picture books was published each year. After her death, hundreds of pages of unpublished picture book manuscripts were found. Those books are still being published.

Before I share the following list, I want to admit that before this week, I had formed an absolutely incorrect opinion about the author of Goodnight Moon. I never bothered to check, and I simply assumed that the author of that rocking-chair picture book was probably some little, old lady.

The truth is that Margaret Wise Brown was far from that.

She was a radical, bisexual, East-Coast socialite, and quite honestly, I wish that I had known her.

For years, she was in a relationship with  Blanche Oelrichs [Michael Strange], who had been married to the famous actor John Barrymore [the brother of Lionel and Ethel Barrymore and the father ofDrew].

Brown admired Gertrude Stein, and Stein collaborated with Brown on at least one picture book. Some people believe that Brown emulated Stein’s writing style in her picture book Goodnight Moon. 

Like Stein, Brown had a female lover. Blanche [Michael] was 20 years older than Brown, and she died while Brown was still quite young. After that, a son of one of the Rockefellers proposed to Brown, but before that marriage could take place, the author died suddenly, of an embolism. She was only 42 when she died, and she was in the South of France.

After I have done a little bit of research,  I realize that Margaret Wise Brown was more of a 1930s jet-setting movie star type than she was a like little old lady. I’m glad that I learned that I had been wrong about her. 

Because she rocked several boats early in her writing career, Margaret Wise Brown ran afoul of the ALA and the New York Library. A bully librarian at the latter blocked Brown’s books for many years, and yet, Brown still managed to be one of the most prolific of all published picture book writers. That is especially true if you consider the ratio of books published per number of years available to write them.

Had she lived to be 100, Margaret Wise Brown never would have been a little old lady. I’ve determined to read as many of her books as I can find.  Quite honestly, I have never been a huge fan of Goodnight Moon, and because of that, I have never read many of Brown’s other books before now. “Hiss, Boo, Shame, Blasphemy,” you say. Recently, I have discovered that in other of her less sparse texts, Margaret Wise Brown was a very good writer. 

Following is a list of her books:

• When the Wind Blew, illus. Rosalie Slocum (Harper & Brothers, 1937); re-issued by HarperCollins in 1986 illus. Geoffrey Hayes

• Bumble Bugs and Elephants: a Big and Little Book, illus. Clement Hurd (W. R. Scott, 1938)

• The Little Fireman, illus. Esphyr Slobodkina (W. R. Scott, 1938)
• Noisy Book series
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  • The Noisy Book, illus. Leonard Weisgard (W. R. Scott, 1939)
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  • The Country Noisy Book, illus. Leonard Weisgard (W. R. Scott, 1940)
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  • The Seashore Noisy Book, illus. Leonard Weisgard (W. R. Scott, 1941)
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  • The Indoor Noisy Book, illus. Leonard Weisgard (W. R. Scott, 1942)
  • The Noisy Bird Book, illus. Leonard Weisgard (W. R. Scott, 1943)
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  • The Winter Noisy Book, illus. Charles Green Shaw (W. R. Scott, 1947)
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  • The Quiet Noisy Book, illus. Leonard Weisgard (Harper, 1950)
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  • The Summer Noisy Book, illus. Leonard Weisgard (Harper, 1951)
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• Baby Animals, illus. Mary Cameron (Random House, 1941)

• The Runaway Bunny, illus. Clement Hurd (Harper, 1942)

• Don’t Frighten the Lion, illus. H. A. Rey (Harper, 1942)
• Big Dog, Little Dog, illus. Leonard Weisgard (Doubleday, Doran and Company, 1943) ‡
• Horses, illus. Dorothy F. Wagstaff (Harper, 1944), as by “Timothy Hay” and “Wag”, OCLC 5047734

• Red Light Green Light, illus. Leonard Weisgard (Doubleday, 1944) ‡

• A Child’s Good Night Book, illus. Jean Charlot (W. R. Scott, 1944)

• They All Saw It, illus. Ylla (Harper, 1944)

• The Little Fisherman, illus. Dahlov Ipcar (W. R. Scott, 1945). Reissued 2015.

• Little Lost Lamb, illus. Leonard Weisgard (Doubleday, 1945) ‡

• The Little Island, illus. Leonard Weisgard (Doubleday, 1946) ‡

• Little Fur Family, illus. Garth Williams (Harper, 1946)

• The Man in the Manhole and the Fix-It Men, illus. Bill Ballantine (New York: W. R. Scott, 1946), written by Brown and Edith Thacher Hurd^{[citation needed]} as “Juniper Sage”, OCLC 1698467

• Goodnight Moon, illus. Clement Hurd (Harper, 1947) Brown was 37 – She would die 5 years later

• The Golden Sleepy Book, illus. Garth Williams (Golden Classic, 1948)

• The Golden Egg Book, illus. Leonard Weisgard (Little Golden Books, 1947)

• The Sleepy Little Lion, illus. Ylla (Harper, 1947)

• The Important Book, illus. Leonard Weisgard (Harper, 1949)

• The Little Cowboy, illus. Esphyr Slobodkina (W. R. Scott, 1948)

• The Little Farmer, illus. Esphyr Slobodkina (W. R. Scott, 1948)

• Wait till the Moon is Full, illus. Garth Williams (Harper, 1948)

• The Color Kittens, illus. Alice and Martin Provensen (Little Golden Books, 1949)

• Two Little Miners, with Edith Thacher Hurd, illus. Richard Scarry (Little Golden Books, 1949)

• My World, illus. Clement Hurd (Harper, 1949)

• O Said the Squirrel, illus. Ylla (London: Harvill Press, 1950)

• Fox Eyes, illus. Garth Williams (Pantheon Books, 1951)
• The Duck, illus. Ylla (Harper; Harvill, 1952)

• Mister Dog: The Dog Who Belonged to Himself, illus. Garth Williams (Little Golden Books, 1952)

• Doctor Squash, The Doll Doctor, illus David Hitch (Random House, Inc, 1952)

Margaret Wise Brown Died from an Embolism at the Age of 42 in 1952.

• Little Frightened Tiger, illus. Leonard Weisgard (Doubleday, 1953) ‡

• Scuppers The Sailor Dog, illus. Garth Williams (Little Golden Books, 1953)
• Big Red Barn, illus. Rosella Hartman (W. R. Scott, 1956); re-issued by HarperCollins in 1989 illus. Felicia Bond

• The Little Brass Band, illus. Clement Hurd (Harper & Brothers, 1955)

• Three Little Animals, illus. Garth Williams (Harper, 1956)

• Home for a Bunny, illus. Garth Williams (Golden Press, 1956)

• Whistle for the Train, illus. Leonard Weisgard (Doubleday, 1956) ‡

• The Dead Bird, illus. Remy Charlip (Addison-Wesley Publishing, 1958), re-issued in 2016 with illustrations by Christian Robinson
• Under the Sun and the Moon and Other Poems, illus. Tom Leonard (Hyperion, 1993)

• Sleepy ABC, illus. Esphyr Slobodkina (HarperCollins, 1994)
• Another Important Book, illus. Christopher Raschka (Joanna Cotler Books, 1999)

• Bunny’s Noisy Book, illus. Lisa McCue (Hyperion, 2000)

• The Fierce Yellow Pumpkin, illus. Richard Egielski (HarperCollins, 2003)

• Sneakers, the Seaside Cat, illus. Anne Mortimer (HarperCollins, 2003)

• The Little Scarecrow Boy, illus. DavidDiaz (HarperCollins, 2005)

• A Pussycat’s Christmas, illus. Anne Mortimer ( Katherine Tegen Books, 2009)

• The Fathers Are Coming Home, illus. Stephen Savage (Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2010)

• Count to 10 with a Mouse, illus. Kirsten Richards (Parragon, 2012)

[Keep in mind that while these illustrations are more appealing to today’s readers, this story was written at least 70 years ago. This verifies that illustrations are invaluable for picture books]

• Goodnight Little One, illus. Rebecca Elliott (Parragon, 2012)

• Away in My Airplane, illus. Henry Fisher (Parragon, 2013)

• The Diggers, illus. Antoine Corbineau (Parragon, 2013)

• Sleep Tight, Sleepy Bears, illus. Julie Clay (Parragon, 2013)

• One More Rabbit, illus. Emma Levey (Parragon, 2014)

• The Noon Balloon, illus. Lorena Alvarez (Parragon, 2014)

• Goodnight Songs, multiple illustrators (Sterling Children’s Books, 2014)

• Goodnight Songs: a Celebration of the Seasons, (Sterling Children’s Books, 2014)

• Love Song of the Little Bear, illus. Katy Hudson (Parragon, 2015)

• The Find It Book, illus. Lisa Sheehan (Parragon, 2015)
• Goodnight Little One, illus. Rebecca Elliot (Parragon, 2016)

• Good Day, Good Night, illus. Loren Long (HarperCollins, 2017)

• Be Brave, Little Tiger!, illus. Jeane Claude (Parragon, 2017)

• The Happy Little Rabbit, illus. Emma Levey (Parragon, 2017)

• The Whispering Rabbit, illus. Annie Won (Little Golden Books reissue, 2017)

• Two Little Trains, illus. Greg Pizzoli (HarperCollins, 2020)