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The Important Thing About Margaret Wise Brown

h1 June 25th, 2019 by jules


“Margaret Wise Brown lived for 42 years. This book is 42 pages long. You can’t fit somebody’s life into 42 pages, so I am just going to tell you some important things.”
(Click to enlarge spread, which is sans text)


 

I’ve got a review over at BookPage of Mac Barnett’s The Important Thing About Margaret Wise Brown (Balzer + Bray, May 2019), illustrated by Sarah Jacoby. It’s a book in which every time Brown is mentioned (as one of my observant book club members noticed), the text says “Margaret Wise Brown.” Not just “Margaret.” Every single mention. I love it.

My review is here, and here today at 7-Imp are some spreads from the book. Let me add: If you are interested in reading this book, I also highly recommend you read this Q&A with Mac and Sarah at 100 Scope Notes, as well as Carter Higgins’s Q&A with Sarah at Design of the Picture Book.

Until later …



 


“The important thing about Margaret Wise Brown is that she wrote books. Every book was written by somebody. Some books were written by Ruth Krauss. Some books were written by Jon Scieszka or Judith Viorst. The book you are reading now was written by Mac Barnett. Over 100 books were written by Margaret Wise Brown. “
(Click to enlarge spread, which is sans text)


 


“People thought Margaret Wise Brown was strange, and they thought her books were strange too. Now it’s true that Margaret Wise Brown did strange things. She swam naked in cold water. She put a door in her house that led out to a cliff that plunged into the sea. And when Margaret Wise Brown first got paid to write a book,
do you know what she did with the money?”
(Click to enlarge spread, which is sans text)


 


“Margaret Wise Brown found a flower cart on a street in the city and she bought the whole thing. Not the cart. Not the horse. But every last flower.”
(Click to enlarge spread, which is sans text)


 


“Margaret Wise Brown filled her little home with flowers and she threw a party and invited her friends. After a few hours her friends left. And after a few days the flowers died. Some people might think it’s silly or sad to spend so much money on something that is over so soon. But I think it is beautiful. How about you?”
(Click to enlarge illustration, which is sans text)


 


(Click to enlarge cover)


 

* * * * * * *

THE IMPORTANT THING ABOUT MARGARET WISE BROWN. Copyright © 2019 by Mac Barnett. Illustrations © 2019 by Sarah Jacoby and reproduced by permission of the publisher, Balzer + Bray, an imprint of HarperCollins, New York.





2 comments to “The Important Thing About Margaret Wise Brown”

  1. Thanks Jules. I love the spread with all the bunnies reading. Sarah and Mac are brilliant.

         by Rob Dunlavey June 29th, 2019 at 4:30 am

  2. great post

         by put January 12th, 2023 at 1:41 am

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