The Little Island

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The Little Island Pub. Date: 6/15/1988 Publisher: Scholastic, Inc.
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The Little Island Pub. Date: 9/9/2003 Publisher: Random House Children's Books

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The Little Island (Library Binding) Pub. Date: 9/9/2003 Publisher: Random House Children's Books

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Overview

Once there was a little island in the ocean. That little island changes as the seasons come and go. The storm and the day and night change it. So do the lobsters and seals and gulls that stop by. Then one day a kitten visits the little island and learns a secret that every child will enjoy.

Depicts the changes that occur on a small island as the seasons come and go, as day changes to night, and as a storm approaches.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

Several old favorites are being reissued this month. The Caldecott Medal-winning The Little Island by Margaret Wise Brown, illus. by Leonard Weisgard, tells about the seasons and animals that touch a small island ("There was a little Island in the ocean./ Around it the winds blew/ And the birds flew/ And the tides rose and fell on the shore"), and a kitten who comes ashore learns a secret about the island and a lesson about faith. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Children's Literature

When first published in 1947, this timeless book won the Caldecott Medal for the most distinguished American picture book for children. It was originally published under the pseudonym Golden MacDonald and was one of over 100 books written by the author. With its spare wording and watercolor scenes, the book depicts the vibrancy of life on an island far out at sea. The words lap across the pages in a lyrical rhythm—if not with any rhyme—as the island takes its place in nature. The island is subject to the changes of the seasons, shifting weather patterns, and the passage of time. We hear of "spiders sailing their webs" and meet a visiting kitten who describes himself as "a little island in the air"; we see "waves as big as glassy mountains," and we feel the tug and the sway of changing patterns. The book, like the tale of the island it rejoices, is mesmerizing in its celebration of life and the world. 2003, Doubleday, Ages 5 to 8.
— Susan Schott Karr

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780385746403
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Publication date: 9/9/2003
Pages: 48
Sales rank: 241,806
Age range: 5 - 8 Years
Product dimensions: 10.38 (w) x 8.18 (h) x 0.38 (d)

Meet the Author

Margaret Wise Brown

Margaret Wise Brown, who also wrote under the pseudonym of Golden MacDonald, published more than 100 books for children.

Leonard Weisgard illustrated more than 100 children’s books.

Biography

When Margaret Wise Brown began to write for young children, most picture books were written by illustrators, whose training and talents lay mainly in the visual arts. Brown, the author of Goodnight Moon, was the first picture-book author to achieve recognition as a writer, and the first, according to historian Barbara Bader, "to make the writing of picture books an art."

After graduating college in 1932, Brown's first ambition was to write literature for adults; but when she entered a program for student teachers in New York, she was thrilled by the experience of working with young children, and inspired by the program's progressive leader, the education reformer Lucy Sprague Mitchell. Mitchell held that stories for very young children should be grounded in "the here and now" rather than nonsense or fantasy. For children aged two to five, she thought, real experience was magical enough without embellishments.

Few children's authors had attempted to write specifically for so young an audience, but Brown quickly proved herself gifted at the task. She was appointed editor of a new publishing firm devoted to children's books, where she cultivated promising new writers and illustrators, helped develop innovations like the board book, and became, as her biographer Leonard S. Marcus notes, "one of the central figures of a period now considered the golden age of the American picture book."

Though Brown was intensely interested in modernist writers like Gertrude Stein (whom she persuaded to write a children's book, The World Is Round), it was a medieval ballad that provided the inspiration for The Runaway Bunny (1942), illustrated by Clement Hurd. The Runaway Bunny was Brown's first departure from the here-and-now style of writing, and became one of her most popular books.

Goodnight Moon, another collaboration with Hurd, appeared in 1947. The story of a little rabbit's bedtime ritual, its rhythmic litany of familiar objects placed it somewhere between the nursery rhyme and the here-and-now story. At first it was only moderately successful, but its popularity gradually climbed, and by 2000, it was among the top 40 best-selling children's books of all time.

The postwar baby boom helped propel sales of Brown's many picture books, including Two Little Trains (1949) and The Important Book (1949). After the author died in 1952, at the age of 42, many of her unpublished manuscripts were illustrated and made into books, but Brown remains best known for Goodnight Moon and The Runaway Bunny.

More people recognize those titles than recognize the name of their author, but Margaret Wise Brown wouldn't have minded. "It didn't seem important that anyone wrote them," she once said of the books she read as a child. "And it still doesn't seem important. I wish I didn't have ever to sign my long name on the cover of a book and I wish I could write a story that would seem absolutely true to the child who hears it and to myself." For millions of children who have settled down to hear her stories, she did just that.

Good To Know

When Goodnight Moon first appeared, the New York Public Library declined to buy it (an internal reviewer dismissed it as too sentimental). The book sold fairly well until 1953, when sales began to climb, perhaps because of word-of-mouth recommendations by parents. More than 4 million copies have now been sold. The New York Public Library finally placed its first order for the book in 1973.

If you look closely at the bookshelves illustrated in Goodnight Moon, you'll see that one of the little rabbit's books is The Runaway Bunny. One of three framed pictures on the walls shows a scene from the same book.

Brown's death was a stunning and sad surprise. The author had had an emergency appendectomy in France while on a book tour, which was successful; but when she did a can-can kick days later to demonstrate her good health to her doctor, it caused a fatal embolism.

1. Also Known As:
  
  Golden MacDonald, Juniper Sage, Timothy Hay
1. Date of Birth:
  
  May 23, 1910
2. Place of Birth:
  
  Brooklyn, N.Y.
1. Date of Death:
  
  November 13, 1952
2. Place of Death:
  
  Nice, France

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The Little Island

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Overview

All Available Formats + Editions

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More About This Book

Overview

Related Subjects

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

Children's Literature

Product Details

Meet the Author

Margaret Wise Brown

Biography

Good To Know

Customer Reviews

Rating Distribution

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