The other night my two-year-old daughter insisted that I
read the classic children’s bedtime story Goodnight Moon to her before bed – five times in a row. Considering how many
times I’ve been tempted to read my rowdy child the modern bedtime parody for adults
called Go the F__ to Sleep, I was happy to
oblige.
Goodnight Moon is not so much a story
as a repetitive ritual designed to wind a child down for sleep. The narrator says goodnight to objects depicted in a child’s
bedroom and visible through the windows: “Goodnight room. Goodnight moon… Goodnight light, and the red
balloon...” The light in the illustrated room dims gradually until
only starlight and moonlight remain, gradually acclimating the child to the
dark, as the book itself gradually lulls the child to sleep: “Goodnight stars…
Goodnight air… Goodnight noises everywhere.”
Written by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Clement Hurd, Goodnight Moon was published in 1947 and slowly
became a bestseller, until by 2007 the number of copies sold topped 16 million. That same year the
National Education Association named it one of its “Teachers' Top 100 Books for
Children.” It was named one of the “Top 100 Picture Books” of all time in a
2012 poll by School Library Journal.
In the book, Communism is represented by a large red balloon, which
continually hovers over the young child's bed. The light on the nightstand
represented [Senator Joseph] McCarthy's efforts to shed light on domestic
conspiracies by foreign operatives. The clocks represented the countdown to the
next world conflict…
The simplest and most obvious reason, though, is that the
book is hypnotically reassuring. But there is a mystical quality to it as well,
in the guardian presence of the nighttime sky. To my daughter, there is
something otherworldly – literally – and wondrous about the moon and stars. “The
child's wonder/ At the old moon/ Comes back nightly,” wrote Carl Sandburg, and
he is right. She often pulls me outside onto our deck at night simply to show
me the moon and stars and observe them together. Her sense of wonder and awe
about them is contagious even in a jaded modern adult like myself.
And yet at the same time, she takes for granted a world in
which technology is indistinguishable from magic. At two years old she is adept
at navigating her way around a Kindle Fire – scrolling to find the kids’ TV
series and episode she wants, adjusting the volume, pausing and restarting.
When I was her age back in the Mesozoic Era, technology played no part in my life. Remote controls,
answering machines, even push-button phones didn’t exist. Today our lives, mine included, are crowded with
distracting techno-toys clamoring for our attention.
To address that modern plugged-in existence comes a new
parody of Goodnight Moon aimed at
adults: Goodnight iPad, written by “Ann
Droyd.” It updates the original with reference to all the magical gadgets that
populate our lives: “Goodnight Nooks and digital books… Goodnight remotes and
Netflix streams, Androids, apps, and glowing screens… Goodnight MacBook Air,
Goodnight gadgets everywhere.” It humorously captures our reluctance to power
down at the end of the day, to silence all “the bings, bongs, and beeps of
emails and Tweets” and be alone with our divinely-sparked consciousness, under
the watchful heavens.
My daughter has no mystical connection to that technology.
Unlike the moon and stars, it doesn’t hint at infinity or mortality or the very
material of our own cells. “We are star stuff,” famously said another Carl S., Carl
Sagan, and “some part of our being
knows this is where we came from. We long to return.” Our
technology doesn’t compel her imagination or wonder or curiosity in the same spiritual
way. It draws her away from herself, while the moon and stars bring her back home,
and comfort her to sleep. I hope someday, when she is a jaded adult like me,
she too has a child who reminds her of that.
(This article originally appeared here on Acculturated, 1/29/13)
