Go to bed already ...

Tonight I'm going to do something a little different.

I'm going to destroy a piece of your childhood.

On the surface, Goodnight Moon is an innocent bedtime story. I'm sure you know it. It's been around for more than 60 years. So the chances are good that it was read to you as a child, you read it to your children, or maybe both.

"In the great green room

There was a telephone

And a red balloon

And a picture of —"

And so begins our tale. Seems simple enough.

There's a cute little bunny child laying in bed – and he (or she) takes a count of everything in the room and then proceeds to tell everything goodnight.

Sweet, huh?

Except it isn't. It's a story about the pains of putting a small child to bed. It's all right there on the page if you're willing to read between the lines a little bit.

See, the baby bunny starts off our tale tucked into bed. The next time we see him? Still wide awake – despite the "old lady whispering hush." The next time? Standing on the bed looking at a painting. And again a few pages later – sitting on the covers, arms crossed in defiance. And still again – this time rolling around and kicking his legs. Finally – after more urging from the old lady – the child is back in the bed, bleary-eyed but still awake.

But Mike, I can hear you saying, you're obviously reading way too much into this beloved bedtime tale.

Really?

Have you looked at the clocks? That's right. There are clocks in the background of the illustrations. And what do the clocks tell us?

Well, it's 7 pm (I'm assuming it's PM – the title of the book has "night" in it after all) when baby bunny is first seen in bed. And then 7:20 by the time he's done looking around the room. And we still have to fidget around the bed and play the "say good-night to everything" to avoid going to sleep game.

It's 8 pm when the old lady has finally had enough and tells the brat to lay down already. At 8:10 the kid has finally passed out – but the old lady has already given up and is probably on her way to the pantry to fix herself a stiff drink.

That's more than an hour of fighting this child before they finally pass out from exhaustion. Does this still sound like a cute little bedtime story to you?

Now take into account that if your child loves this book (and kids love this book – at least mine does) you have to read this story EVERY night. Which means you have to relive this old lady's anguish over and over and over again. That's right, the author knows the pain you go through every night and she is mocking you.

I don't know about you, but I think that Margaret Wise Brown was one sick lady.