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Over the Moon #3
My World
Now you can revisit the world of the beloved little bunny and family in this perfect companion to everyone's favorite bedtime story, Goodnight Moon . Gentle illustrations of everyday objects along with poetic words capture the excitement of a young child exploring new boundaries, as the bunny greets all the familiar things in this new world. From one of the most accomplished and popular author and illustrator collaborations of all time, this is a classic picture book in which good morning is as reassuring and enchanting as goodnight . This story is perfect for sharing with emergent readers. Your world. My world. I can swing right over the world...
36 pages, Board Book
First published January 1, 1949
12 people are currently reading
692 people want to read
About the author
Margaret Wise Brown
393 books1,209 followersMargaret Wise Brown wrote hundreds of books and stories during her life, but she is best known for Goodnight Moon and The Runaway Bunny. Even though she died nearly 70 years ago, her books still sell very well.
Margaret loved animals. Most of her books have animals as characters in the story. She liked to write books that had a rhythm to them. Sometimes she would put a hard word into the story or poem. She thought this made children think harder when they are reading.
She wrote all the time. There are many scraps of paper where she quickly wrote down a story idea or a poem. She said she dreamed stories and then had to write them down in the morning before she forgot them.
She tried to write the way children wanted to hear a story, which often isn't the same way an adult would tell a story. She also taught illustrators to draw the way a child saw things. One time she gave two puppies to someone who was going to draw a book with that kind of dog. The illustrator painted many pictures one day and then fell asleep. When he woke up, the papers he painted on were bare. The puppies had licked all the paint off the paper.
Margaret died after surgery for a bursting appendix while in France. She had many friends who still miss her. They say she was a creative genius who made a room come to life with her excitement. Margaret saw herself as something else - a writer of songs and nonsense.
Margaret loved animals. Most of her books have animals as characters in the story. She liked to write books that had a rhythm to them. Sometimes she would put a hard word into the story or poem. She thought this made children think harder when they are reading.
She wrote all the time. There are many scraps of paper where she quickly wrote down a story idea or a poem. She said she dreamed stories and then had to write them down in the morning before she forgot them.
She tried to write the way children wanted to hear a story, which often isn't the same way an adult would tell a story. She also taught illustrators to draw the way a child saw things. One time she gave two puppies to someone who was going to draw a book with that kind of dog. The illustrator painted many pictures one day and then fell asleep. When he woke up, the papers he painted on were bare. The puppies had licked all the paint off the paper.
Margaret died after surgery for a bursting appendix while in France. She had many friends who still miss her. They say she was a creative genius who made a room come to life with her excitement. Margaret saw herself as something else - a writer of songs and nonsense.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 132 reviews
August 25, 2011
Just reread "My World," the sequel to "Goodnight Moon." It really is the disturbing, domestic psychodrama I remembered. The vast distances between characters (whose eyes never meet except for in one poignant dream sequence), the unspoken tension between the two parents, Mother sleeping alone, Daddy's final departure to the city, and the boy being equated with a toy all add up to trouble in paradise--something is deeply not right in the Rabbit home.
The book opens with the introduction of Mother's cryptic book, the contents of which the child is forbidden from beholding (we later observe over Mother's shoulder that it is filled with blank pages). We turn the page to see Mother and Child sitting in silence on opposite ends of the room, staring at the fire in grim silence.
"The fire burns. The pages turn."
Effective and creepy, no?
Later, the Child plays with his toy car, while Daddy (far away and with his back turned) works on his car. The Child's car "won't go very far." The reason for this is obvious when we glance at the illustration--the Child is attempting to run over his teddy bear. On the previous page, the teddy bear has been identified with the Child. The Child's car won't go very far; but, presumably, Daddy's car (or Daddy himself) will--and we will see this borne out near the end, when Daddy leaves the family.
The book ends with the cryptic question: "How many stripes on a bumble bee?" The drawing of the bee is deliberately vague, leaving the stripes uncountable, and echoing the Jamesian sense of foggy paranoia that has been the hallmark of the book. And the implied stinger of the bee ends the book on a suggestively threatening note.
I've only begun to scratch the surface of this eerie little book, but go seek it out and you'll find lots more. It's poignant, unsettling, and sees past the surface of the rising postwar suburban household to the lurking terrors roiling beneath.
Guess who was in the target three-year-old audience when this book was published in 1949? David freaking Lynch. Enjoy.
The book opens with the introduction of Mother's cryptic book, the contents of which the child is forbidden from beholding (we later observe over Mother's shoulder that it is filled with blank pages). We turn the page to see Mother and Child sitting in silence on opposite ends of the room, staring at the fire in grim silence.
"The fire burns. The pages turn."
Effective and creepy, no?
Later, the Child plays with his toy car, while Daddy (far away and with his back turned) works on his car. The Child's car "won't go very far." The reason for this is obvious when we glance at the illustration--the Child is attempting to run over his teddy bear. On the previous page, the teddy bear has been identified with the Child. The Child's car won't go very far; but, presumably, Daddy's car (or Daddy himself) will--and we will see this borne out near the end, when Daddy leaves the family.
The book ends with the cryptic question: "How many stripes on a bumble bee?" The drawing of the bee is deliberately vague, leaving the stripes uncountable, and echoing the Jamesian sense of foggy paranoia that has been the hallmark of the book. And the implied stinger of the bee ends the book on a suggestively threatening note.
I've only begun to scratch the surface of this eerie little book, but go seek it out and you'll find lots more. It's poignant, unsettling, and sees past the surface of the rising postwar suburban household to the lurking terrors roiling beneath.
Guess who was in the target three-year-old audience when this book was published in 1949? David freaking Lynch. Enjoy.
January 6, 2018
Something about Mommy Bunny that I find very comforting...nice to read on a cold and windy day.
August 15, 2010
This book fucking sucks.
September 16, 2020
While I most certainly did not expect My World: A Companion to Goodnight Moon to be quite as textually and illustratively lovely as I have always found Goodnight Moon to be, I was at least hoping for a worthwhile and sufficiently engaging sequel (or rather I should say companion piece).
But no and sadly, with My World: A Companion to Goodnight Moon I have most definitely found neither Margaret Wise Brown's narrative nor Clement Hurd's artwork to really in any manner even remotely measure up to the magic of sweet childhood of Goodnight Moon (and its more than richly deserved status as classic of children’s literature). For Margaret Wise Brown’s printed words in My World: A Companion to Goodnight Moon, they are (in my opinion) not really in possession of all that much if in fact any true and bona fide delightfulness and tenderness but instead read and present themselves like a stilted and all over the place laundry list of both mundane and then also increasingly strange, even rather nonsensical scenarios, and not to mention that Clement Hurd’s accompanying illustrations for My World: A Companion to Goodnight Moon equally rather do reflect Margaret Wise Brown’s text only in a very much negative manner, appearing as similarity stagnant and often in fact totally lacking in any kind of visual and aesthetic expressivity whatsoever.
Therefore. while I most definitely would ALWAYS and strongly recommend Goodnight Moon, I really do ONLY suggest My World: A Companion to Goodnight Moon to Margaret Wise Brown completists. Because while of course there is nothing inappropriate with regard to either Margaret Wise Brown’s text or Clement Hurd’s pictures, there is also no real magic and no wonderful feeling of home and hearth present in My World: A Companion to Goodnight Moon either, making it at best a majorly lacking and pale reflection of Goodnight Moon and as such also not an adequate companion piece for the latter by any stretch of my imagination (and with my two star rating actually feeling rather generous the more I think about this, but indeed, I do think that I will leave my two stars for now and not lower My World: A Companion to Goodnight to but one star, since not finding a given book sufficiently charming and engaging is a personal consideration and choice and thus of course also not something set in stone so to speak).
But no and sadly, with My World: A Companion to Goodnight Moon I have most definitely found neither Margaret Wise Brown's narrative nor Clement Hurd's artwork to really in any manner even remotely measure up to the magic of sweet childhood of Goodnight Moon (and its more than richly deserved status as classic of children’s literature). For Margaret Wise Brown’s printed words in My World: A Companion to Goodnight Moon, they are (in my opinion) not really in possession of all that much if in fact any true and bona fide delightfulness and tenderness but instead read and present themselves like a stilted and all over the place laundry list of both mundane and then also increasingly strange, even rather nonsensical scenarios, and not to mention that Clement Hurd’s accompanying illustrations for My World: A Companion to Goodnight Moon equally rather do reflect Margaret Wise Brown’s text only in a very much negative manner, appearing as similarity stagnant and often in fact totally lacking in any kind of visual and aesthetic expressivity whatsoever.
Therefore. while I most definitely would ALWAYS and strongly recommend Goodnight Moon, I really do ONLY suggest My World: A Companion to Goodnight Moon to Margaret Wise Brown completists. Because while of course there is nothing inappropriate with regard to either Margaret Wise Brown’s text or Clement Hurd’s pictures, there is also no real magic and no wonderful feeling of home and hearth present in My World: A Companion to Goodnight Moon either, making it at best a majorly lacking and pale reflection of Goodnight Moon and as such also not an adequate companion piece for the latter by any stretch of my imagination (and with my two star rating actually feeling rather generous the more I think about this, but indeed, I do think that I will leave my two stars for now and not lower My World: A Companion to Goodnight to but one star, since not finding a given book sufficiently charming and engaging is a personal consideration and choice and thus of course also not something set in stone so to speak).
November 5, 2022
A day-in-the-life book with a bunny family where the little bunny's things -- books, combs, spoons -- are smaller versions of the parents' things.
It's nice in its gentle, random way, but it's easy to see why this is less popular than Goodnight Moon, garnering only 1,043 ratings on Goodreads compared to the other's 350,025.
It's nice in its gentle, random way, but it's easy to see why this is less popular than Goodnight Moon, garnering only 1,043 ratings on Goodreads compared to the other's 350,025.
October 6, 2008
This book is so comforting and makes perfect sense to my children- perfect for 18 months- 3 year olds. My son chose it nightly for many months. I think this author knows what children want and need to hear more than any other. I love this better than Goodnight Moon.
November 13, 2008
Whoa. What the F was going on in Margaret Wise Brown's mind? This is a book for toddlers and hard-core Dadaists. It's one of those books that I would think you shouldn't look at if you are tripping because it could send you into a spiral and put you in a fetal position for three days. It makes no sense. It occasionally rhymes. It seems to consist of rough notes for other books, stitched together with drawings of the characters from The Runaway Bunny if they were a depressed suburban family with a distant father and a mother who drinks a little. Finally there's that last page. Wow.
May 5, 2011
Wow. I'm amazed at the low ratings and negative reviews for this book. It's not as mesmerizing as Goodnight Moon, but the cadence and rhyme of the text is pleasing to read out loud. I think it's a simple little story about a bunny with a limited vocabulary and view of the world showing off his everyday life and things to the readers and listeners. My son loved this book.
February 16, 2011
The kid loves looking at the pictures and talking about what's happening on each page. A bit of a surprise to me, since it's quite quaint.
May 7, 2008
The tale of the little bunny continues in this wonderful little book. Margaret Wise Brown touches on the little things, the little details of a home and a child's surroundings - these things are what a child finds remarkable and important in their own little world. Some adults have criticized the author for writing a book that makes no sense, but when you get right down to it and give it a closer look, it makes perfect sense to a small child. And the small child is the intended audience, not an adult.
"Your world, my world. I can swing right over the world. My tree, the bird's tree. How many stripes on a bumble bee?"
"Your world, my world. I can swing right over the world. My tree, the bird's tree. How many stripes on a bumble bee?"
June 14, 2008
I expected a lot from "My World" (MW). After all, "Goodnight Moon" (GM) was in very heavy rotation in my home for years. I even memorized it so I could slowly repeat it in monotone, in the dark, at 4 a.m., when my son needed rocking and soothing. (I did the same thing with Rudyard Kipling's "If," which is perfect for that application as well, by the way.)
MW just doesn't have the magic, though it's got the same author and illustrator. I don't know what it is about the flow and pacing of GM, but it's lyrical and mesmerizing, like a Murakami novel ["Goodnight nobody" huh?!], but for infants. MW reads awkwardly with unpredictable phrasing length and purgatorial rhyming (I have no idea what I mean by that, but it seemed accurate, somehow).
I think Margaret Wise Brown is trying something interesting. She's seems to be trying to capture the fledgling observation of curiosity of a very young child, but it just doesn't resonate with me, or my son.
MW just doesn't have the magic, though it's got the same author and illustrator. I don't know what it is about the flow and pacing of GM, but it's lyrical and mesmerizing, like a Murakami novel ["Goodnight nobody" huh?!], but for infants. MW reads awkwardly with unpredictable phrasing length and purgatorial rhyming (I have no idea what I mean by that, but it seemed accurate, somehow).
I think Margaret Wise Brown is trying something interesting. She's seems to be trying to capture the fledgling observation of curiosity of a very young child, but it just doesn't resonate with me, or my son.
November 21, 2024
It's strange to return to such a familiar world without the veil of nostalgia, but it's telling that this doesn't feel like a cheap follow-up to Goodnight Moon. I struggle with repetition in picture books as an adult reader, but the use of it here is surprisingly dense: simple sentences evoking expansive feelings; inverting the order of objects in the art and text to encourage active reading. It's hardly the only picture book where a child's mimicry of the adult world serves as a teaching tool, but it's a solid take on the premise, simultaneously unique and generalized. The art was recolored in 2001 and I wish I could compare it with original (and I wonder, as always, why there isn't more robust documentation of or even study of children's literature!), but if I had to guess I'd say it was to make a perfect color match to Goodnight Moon, because this successfully expands that iconic room into an entire house. This is lovely and engaging, but not necessary; Goodnight Moon still stands strongest alone.
September 8, 2015
This book was pretty disappointing, especially because I LOVED Goodnight Moon. I was really looking forward to reading this one to Caleb but I found that it was not easy or enjoyable to read out loud. I couldn't get into a good rhythm with it. I thought that the comparisons between the bunny's things and his parent's things were sweet, but other than that I didn't like it. As an example, here are the words from one page that I found didn't flow well when reading out loud:
"Daddy's boy.
Mother's boy.
My boy is just a toy
Bear."
This section, like most of the book, just sounds strange to me and doesn't have good rhythm. This isn't one that I'll likely read to Caleb again.
First read: 8/18/15
"Daddy's boy.
Mother's boy.
My boy is just a toy
Bear."
This section, like most of the book, just sounds strange to me and doesn't have good rhythm. This isn't one that I'll likely read to Caleb again.
First read: 8/18/15
March 18, 2009
I read "Goodnight Moon" to our girls until it fell apart. We never read this one, and I borrowed it because I will be taking our girls to a youth play about "Goodnight Moon" and I thought this would be a good precursor to seeing the play. Overall we weren't impressed, but perhaps our girls are beyond this level of children's lit.
June 26, 2019
Why, or why did Goodnight Moon need a “companion” book. Except for the illustrations I don’t really see how one book goes with the other. I have never really been a fan of Goodnight Moon, I much prefer the parody’s. As for this book, leave it on the shelf. Goodnight Moon may be a classic, but this is not.
August 12, 2019
This story is all over the place and the rhyme is inconsistent. I do not understand the appeal of this book. At least "Goodnight Moon" maintained more of a consistent plot.
November 29, 2025
picked this up at half price books in the clearance rack and it’s not as good as goodnight moon lol
August 17, 2017
The Runaway Bunny was my absolute favorite book as a child. My parents never read Goodnight Moon or My World to me as a child and I'd never heard of My World until I was an adult. I'd heard of Goodnight Moon before, but didn't realize it was by the same author as The Runaway Bunny or had similar bunny illustrations. I read Goodnight Moon for the first time as an adult earlier this year when it was bought for my niece and honestly didn't see the appeal or why it was so many people's favorite. I just read My World today out of curiosity (and because I'm looking for books to buy my niece) and honestly didn't like it at all. I'm sure I'm biased since The Runaway Bunny is the one I grew up with, but it honestly seems to also have a real message attached to it and a cute story. The meaning behind it is that no matter what a child does in life, no matter what they want to do, where they want to go, even when they eventually go through their phase where they want to distance themselves from their parents or even when they think they don't need their parents around anymore, their parents will always be right there, sticking by their side no matter what. No matter what ridiculous make believe scenario the baby bunny could come up with, his mother found a way for them to be together. She made it clear that she would never leave him and would always be there to take care of him. The story had a real meaning behind it of mother's love. With the other two books in this series, I just don't see any kind of message like that. They're just repetitive (not that The Runaway Bunny isn't repetitive because it is as well), kind of pointless, mostly just consisting of mentioning random things around the house. There's no real story or deeper meaning to either one of them. I guess I'm just kind of wondering how Goodnight Moon became the most famous children's book by this author and one of the most famous children's books of all time but The Runaway Bunny did not (at least in my experience, when I tell people that was my favorite book most don't know what it is but they almost all grew up with Goodnight Moon). I don't mean to hate on Goodnight Moon or My World at all as I'm sure many of you grew up with them and feel just as fond of those two as I do of The Runaway Bunny and I recognize that I might be biased, but it just doesn't make sense to me.
December 29, 2010
I normally enjoy surrealist children’s literature, but My World is just too weird for words. The rhyming structure is awkward and poor, and the narrative is just skipping all over the map. It’s not an accident that this book is not nearly as famous as its predecessor, Goodnight Moon, which is unusual in a charming way.
A note for veg*n families: One passage shows the father and child rabbits going fishing, and the following page shows them carving up the fish (head and all) at the dinner table. Mother rabbit also cooks what appears to be bacon in a pan, and the family keeps a bird in a very small, old-fashioned birdcage. (The last two activities are not commented upon in the text.)
A note for veg*n families: One passage shows the father and child rabbits going fishing, and the following page shows them carving up the fish (head and all) at the dinner table. Mother rabbit also cooks what appears to be bacon in a pan, and the family keeps a bird in a very small, old-fashioned birdcage. (The last two activities are not commented upon in the text.)
February 11, 2015
Even though Margaret Wise Brown has provided readers with the same characters and illustration style found in her lovely classic _Goodnight Moon_, this companion book lacks the charm and the appeal of her first book. _My World_ follows the baby bunny as he compares his things (comb, toothbrush, cat, etc.) to his parent's. For those who enjoyed the blogger at "The Ugly Volvo"'s poignant review of the bizarre bedroom in _Goodnight Moon_ (found here: http://theuglyvolvo.com/issues-goodni...), _My World_ provides just as strange an array of items and underlying messages about this bunny family. It also cements gender roles in limiting and unappealing ways. Ending with a bubble bee, I wondered if this book combined several stories in one.
March 13, 2012
This book sucked. Just finished reading it to the girls and I was just totally shocked at how lame it is compared to Goodnight Moon. It's just a bunch of repeated words that make no sense and fail miserably to accomplish the soothing rhythm of a bedtime poem.
And the last page is so so random. After hearing all about this little rabbit and his belongings, the last page asks "How many stripes are on a bee?" What in the world?
Not only did this book suck; but it left me extremely irritated for some reason.
Oh, and it's NOT full color. Lies.
And the last page is so so random. After hearing all about this little rabbit and his belongings, the last page asks "How many stripes are on a bee?" What in the world?
Not only did this book suck; but it left me extremely irritated for some reason.
Oh, and it's NOT full color. Lies.
June 21, 2011
This is by the same author as Good Night Moon and is written as a "companion book" to that title. However, the words don't flow as gently as in her other book. In fact, the pattern of the words seemed to fall off kilter. There is an unsettling lack of parallelism from page to page that makes me not want to read the book again.
January 26, 2012
From the same author/illustrator team as Goodnight Moon. I'm really not a fan of the illustrations in either books, but the illustrations are even poorer in this book than in Goodnight Moon. Furthermore, the rhythmic text of Goodnight Moon makes it worth reading, despite the uninspiring illustrations, but this book doesn't have the quality of text to save it (in fact, both the text and the illustrations are strange).
March 10, 2009
This seems like it ought to be a classic, probably just because it's by Margaret Wise Brown and follows in the path of Goodnight Moon, but I'm here to say I just don't get it. And neither does Noah. I don't know what it means. It's probably very sophisticated poetry, but we just end up pointing out the dog and cat and oatmeal, if we read it at all. I'm thinking about hiding it.
November 2, 2007
though my baby likes pointing out the fire in the fireplace, the moon out the window, and the lawnmower in the garage, this is just a bizarre little book that has little flow or purpose... I'm getting ready to toss it into the giveaway pile.
May 6, 2008
This book is a horrible companion to the brilliant Goodnight Moon. I don't like it at all.
October 23, 2023
My world I found alright. But next to Goodnight Moon and Runaway bunny it just isn't as charming.
Definitely the least favorite of the Moon trio for both my daughter and myself.
Definitely the least favorite of the Moon trio for both my daughter and myself.
November 1, 2023
This book is just odd. The colors are muted and not fun for kids and the wording is cryptic.
February 17, 2025
Isn't it a bit weird for animal characters to have pet animals?!
April 16, 2020
This book is about all the things in the little bunnies world. He mentioned his mommy and daddy and all the things that are also mommy and daddy's. He goes from his car, to the fish his daddy catches, to his bed, and many many more things. This is a cute book that describes all the things that make up your world. I think this is a cute book for younger children because it can enable them to think about the things that are in their world. I didn't understand the differences in the colored pages and the black and white pages but besides that I found this book heart-warming because I felt grateful for the things that are in my world.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 132 reviews