For while I of course understand and appreciate that the little rabbit is curious about its found egg (and that there are sounds coming from it), personally I do find it rather problematic that the bunny shakes the egg, pushes it around, physically jumps on it and even throws nuts and stones at it, all of which I for one consider potentially destructive and as such neither recommendable (nor acceptable) even if the rabbit's behaviour does not in the end have any negative consequences for either the egg or the emerging duckling. However and as much as I have indeed both appreciated and loved Leon Weisgard's pictures, some of Margaret Wise Brown's narrative as it is presented in The Golden Egg Book kind of bothers me more than a bit, kind of rather rubs me the wrong way. Yes, Leonard Weisgard's accompanying illustrations indeed (and of course like usual for him) are absolutely darling (especially the little bunny and later the fluffy yellow duckling that emerges from the egg, but actually, my favourite picture aesthetics and art expression wise is the cover image, with its colourfully decorated Easter egg, although in my opinion that very cover image could also be considered as somewhat misleading as The Golden Egg Book is not really an Easter egg or Easter Bunny type of story but more a tale of curiosity, of springtime in general and yes friendship). Maybe I am in a curmudgeonly mood this morning, but I honestly have been more than a trifle disappointed with Margaret Wise Brown's 1947 The Golden Egg Book.

Margaret saw herself as something else - a writer of songs and nonsense. They say she was a creative genius who made a room come to life with her excitement. Margaret died after surgery for a bursting appendix while in France. The puppies had licked all the paint off the paper. When he woke up, the papers he painted on were bare. The illustrator painted many pictures one day and then fell asleep. One time she gave two puppies to someone who was going to draw a book with that kind of dog. She also taught illustrators to draw the way a child saw things. She tried to write the way children wanted to hear a story, which often isn't the same way an adult would tell a story. She said she dreamed stories and then had to write them down in the morning before she forgot them. There are many scraps of paper where she quickly wrote down a story idea or a poem. She thought this made children think harder when they are reading. Sometimes she would put a hard word into the story or poem. She liked to write books that had a rhythm to them. Most of her books have animals as characters in the story.

Even though she died nearly 70 years ago, her books still sell very well. Margaret Wise Brown wrote hundreds of books and stories during her life, but she is best known for Goodnight Moon and The Runaway Bunny.

The golden egg by margaret wise brown