Is it about death?

[Anita]

Oh please.

[Linda]

For years and years, whenever I've been invited to a baby shower I've gifted a copy of Goodnight Moon. Many times, the new moms smile & say it is the first book in baby's nursery library. As far as layers-have you been to a Disney movie? Re-read Alice in Wonderland or Humpty Dumpty? Played Ring Around the Rosies? Goodnight Moon is a lovely lap-snuggle book. Enjoy that 'goes by way too fast' time with your little one. "Goodnight Goodreads."

[Donna]

Shawn wrote: "Geez, it's a kids book on going to sleep. If you want to analyze something, go read Pynchon."

Word. And whether the writer was frustrated or not, it surely doesn't show up in this soothing tale for small people!

[Amanda]

please for the sake of my childhood stop overthinking everything. y cant the world enjoy anything anymore. i loved this book so much when i was little and now i dont think will be able to read it without thinking this.

[Phillip]

I honestly don't know what this book was ever about. That's what makes it so amazing! It makes you ponder about what's it's about, and the more you wonder, the more creepy it gets. I guess I can get shivers from a kid's book.

[Stephen]

In my opinion, this is a children's book and is ONLY about bed-time. As Edna St. Vincent Millay so clearly explained...Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies.”

[Joelle]

i had no idea this was about death

[Louisa]

It's not about death at all! It's not really "about" something. It's kind of like poetry!

[Tired CNA]

Joanne wrote: "Oh no, is "Pat The Bunny" about sex ?"
OMG you crack me up!!

[Tired CNA]

Goodnight Moon about death! Nonsense! When my kids were little I read it to all of them. As I read it I would read it slower and slower and in a softer voice at the end to lull them to sleep.....
Maybe the New Yorker thinks I was trying to slowly kill them....LOL.

[Kaylee]

No way!

[Destiny]

If it is about death, so what? Death is a natural way of life. Is it a sin to enlighten death so it is easier to handle for the emotionally sensitive? If you all think it is gruesome that a children's book is about death, analyze the book, "Peter Pan". See, Peter Pan is basically a grim reaper if you think about the story line in a gruesome way. He delivers the children to heaven, (Neverland). That is why they never grew up. That is also why there were no parents. Because the children are dead. Boom. Childhood ruined. But if Goodnight Moon is about Death, So what?

[Stephen]

Amanda wrote: "please for the sake of my childhood stop overthinking everything. ..."

Don't worry Virginia ...err Amanda. There IS a Santa Claus.

[Mary]

Thats a terrifying concept of a childrens book

[Papaphilly]

Sometimes a bedtime story is just a bedtime story...

[Stephen]

This is beginning to sound like Phoebe from Friends when she described Bambi as that "sicko animal snuff film" ...

[Elizabeth]

I was a literature major in college, and my primary task was to generate theses for assigned books. Kolbert's piece is essentially the same: literary criticism with a fresh, provocative thesis. Is the book about death? It behooves a savvy reader to recognize that, despite supporting evidence (passages from the book, etc.), the argument made in the article is an opinion. It would be just as legitimate to make a counter-argument, a counter-thesis, as a foil to Kolbert's piece. Is the book about death? It both is and is not, depending on your thesis.

[Reading]

Shula wrote: "I too had this book read to me as a child, innocently thinking it was about just about going to sleep. Here is a quote from the end of an article from the New Yorker: "The arrangement in “Goodnigh..."

Whaaaaaaaaaaaat? I think people try to interpret meaning in ways the author may or many not have originally intended.

[Carrie]

No way. If you want a children's book about death, read charlottes web.

[Stephen]

Carrie wrote: "No way. If you want a children's book about death, read charlottes web." Or Old Yeller

[Raul]

i'm pretty sure it's just about sleep but idk it could have a deeper meaning

[Carole]

Joanne wrote: "Oh no, is "Pat The Bunny" about sex ?"
lol

[Robert]

I'm glad we have figured out all the deep, subconscious meaning of children books :)

[Robert]

especially death and sex

[C.D.]

I doubt the author was secretly writing a book about death for the children's market. However, it is natural to associate sleep with death. Sleep has been referred to as "the little death," and death as "the big sleep." Young children have trouble differentiating between the two.

If there is any allusion to death in "Goodnight Moon," I hope mine comes that peacefully and gently. Now I can't help thinking when I read it to my daughter that it's perfect at the beginning of life, and maybe once again at the end.