Close up photo on a book in someone's hands

ArtSci’s Cara Byrne discussed the 75 year history of Goodnight Moon

‘Goodnight Moon’: 75 years in the great green room

Christian Science Monitor: Cara Byrne, lecturer in the Department of English at the College of Arts and Sciences, said that when Goodnight Moon was first published in 1947, the storyline—incorporating a comforting, structured routine without a complex narrative—was both innovative and radical. “(Margaret Wise Brown’s) books were part of a movement of educators who were trying to push away from some other, older models of educating children—other norms or ideas about children as needing a particular type of instruction, needing to be moralized in a particular way,” she said.