The Important Thing About Margaret Wise Brown
Illustrated by Sarah Jacoby
In forty-two inspired pages, this biography artfully plays with form and language to vividly bring to life one of greatest children’s book creators who ever lived: Margaret Wise Brown.
★ BUY ★
A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2019
“I love this book like life itself.”
—Ann Patchett
★ “Groundbreaking.”
—School Library Journal, Starred Review
★ “Brave.”
—Booklist, Starred Review
★ “The important thing about this review is to say this picture book is great. Here and now, we say to Barnett and Jacoby: We SEE what you've done. You've paid tribute to a woman who changed picture books. Forever. You've acknowledged her queerness, telling readers she fell in love "with a woman called Michael and a man called Pebble." You've honored her words with references to such titles as Goodnight Moon, The Runaway Bunny, The Little Fur Family, and more. You've sat with her respect for child readers as thinking, feeling, whole beings, and you've invited us, your readers, and hers, to do the same. You've framed her conflict with a stuffy librarian as an epic, funny battle. Just like Brown's texts, yours is quirky, and sweet, experimental, funny, and at times heartbreakingly gorgeous. And Jacoby channels Clement Hurd, and Leonard Weisgard, and Garth Williams, and so many other Brown collaborators—and yet? Jacoby remains herself. Just like Margaret Wise Brown was herself, her whole life long. Or her whole life short, really, right? Isn't it a shame she died so young? At 42—as you document in this picture-book biography, this love letter to her life, and to her astonishing legacy to children's literature. Honestly? We don't know what more to say. But we guess we will say this: have a carrot. You've earned it. And so much more. The important thing is that you wrote this picture book—this picture book about Margaret Wise Brown. A runaway success.”
—Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review
★ “Barnett’s confiding tone draws readers in… then makes the case for Brown’s work.”
—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
★ “It’s now clear that the librarian bunny and Mac Barnett share a common passion: advocacy for children’s free access to books. And who better to carry that banner than Margaret Wise Brown, whose books have been vindicated by decades of children who have assayed such titles as Goodnight Moon and found them valuable. Although Brown’s life ended at forty-two, her often strange picture books bear the stamp that counts—the author’s name on the covers of titles in print decades after her passing. The librarian bunny concludes, ‘The important thing about Margaret Wise Brown is that she wrote books.’ Her bunny listeners, and Barnett’s audience as well, may begin to suspect that there could be other books, quirky and strange and wonderful, that aren’t reaching their paws right now in 2019. Children old enough to look back at their Brown favorites with happy nostalgia will surely enjoy this creatively rendered backstory, while teachers and librarians will see connections between Moore’s collection exclusion and broader issues of access, making this age-accessible material for Banned Books Week.”
—The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, Starred Review
“Barnett’s assertion that it is important for children’s books to reflect the things children think of and do, is never more pressing than it is in troubled times.”
—Bustle