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This bio about children‘s author Margaret Wise Brown (The Runaway Bunny, Goodnight Moon) is a soft pick. Interesting information about her life (much of it apparently taken from her own journals) but the tone of the book was oddly stilted and dispassionate. Even the description of Brown‘s death was so curt and matter-of-fact that I read right over it and had to go back. And several of Brown‘s life choices left me questioning her judgment.

Wow. I think that adults might get more out of this one than the kids will. I won't say it's not for all ages, it's talking about important 😉 ideas that kids should encounter, but maybe parents want to read it with them to be there if there are questions? I like what it said and how it said it. No canonizing of the great author, just some moments, less moralizing than presenting. And the art 😍. I have another illustrator to investigate.

I'm just going to live here for a moment. 😌

Not terrible, but not a total winner for me. As much as I loved the Goodnight Moon connections, I could never suspend my disbelief enough to allow fictional Aunt Ruby to have created portions of the story instead of MWB herself. But June was a compelling character, and I was invested enough to finish! #womensfiction

The more I learn about Margaret Wise Brown, the more fascinating I find her.

Terribly interesting New Yorker article here:
https://tinyurl.com/NYmargaretwisebrown

I just ordered her 2017 biography (tagged). When I‘m done, I‘m going to visit her papers (I had no idea they were so close!)…& maybe even try to seek out her gravesite in Maine.

Moxie is upset about the grisly rabbit details…but we‘re trying not to dwell.

There have been so many fabulous books about motherhood recently that are truthful about the parts that aren‘t sunshine and roses. This weirdly creepy novel also had a thread of Margaret Wise Brown‘s actual life that was also interesting. Good narration on #audiobook

5 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 This book is hard to describe. It is about the author Margaret Wise Brown, but it is not a biography. It‘s about the fact that she wrote a book that was not liked by the main lady at the New York Public Library, but that it still exists in our modern lexicon because she believed that children deserved weird little books.

In the days following the birth of Megan's first child, strange things begin to happen. The reader wonders, is she being haunted or is she psychotic? Fine's depiction of the isolation of new motherhood and of the expectation for everything to be a-ok right away feels capital-T True, but the unfolding of the story is tedious at times (as is motherhood). This novel addresses the ways we fail women and the things that we pass down to our children.

Meh. Predictable with no added value

I personally think that Julia Fine is super underrated. This is a masterful unraveling. I deeply disliked Meg, but the writing kept me enraptured. The inclusion of Margaret Wise Brown and Michael Strange was interestingly done. Julia Fine‘s style is decidedly offbeat, but in a way that really works for me. I can‘t recommend her books enough.