Stories to Be Sung and Songs to Be Told

By Margaret Wise Brown

A collection of poems, stories, and notes by Margaret Wise Brown, the best-selling children's author.

Margaret Wise Brown wrote hundreds of books and stories during her life, but she is best known for Goodnight Moon and Runaway Bunny. Even though she died over 45 years ago, her books sti

• Language: English
• Publisher: WaterMark, Inc.
• Release date: Nov 13, 2022
• ISBN: 9798218111212

Margaret Wise Brown

Margaret Wise Brown, cherished for her unique ability to convey a child’s experience and perspective of the world, transformed the landscape of children’s literature with such beloved classics as Goodnight Moon and The Runaway Bunny. Other perennial favorites by Ms. Brown include My World; Christmas in the Barn; The Dead Bird; North, South, East, West; and Good Day, Good Night.

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Introduction

By Margaret Wise Brown

In the natural impulse to amuse and to delight and comfort very young children the song first came, I believe, and it still comes first. The picture book is but a recent development of those early songs that told stories.

A good picture book story clearly shows its musical origin, for it can almost be whistled. I am speaking of the cadence and lilt that carries the story along from page to page. The three Bears, three Billy goats gruff, millions of cats - all have their own melodies behind the storytelling. When such stories are told well, really told, their cadence and rhythm or half the fun.

In this modern world where activity is stressed almost to the point of mania, quietness is a childhood need too often overlooked. Yet a child's need for quietness is the same today as it always has been, it may be even greater, for quietness is an essential part of all awareness. In quiet times and sleepy times a child can dwell in thoughts of his zone and his songs and stories of his own. Tranquility is needed for that essential creative force in children that is behind their play and hence behind the growth of their thought

Taking our queue from Mother Goose and from children's on dictated songs and poems, most songs for children should be short. At the same time, they should have all the overtones of any real piece of writing or music. That is the only possible way they could come to mean something to many different individuals that people are, it is perhaps the only reason adults have remembered many of the old songs to sing to children.

And since the child is a person with his own differences and uniqueness there is a need for many songs. Children make their own journeys in their own way over that long road we call growth. But although children differ wildly one from another, they have only been in this world the same length of time and so they will always have much in common.

These are silly simple songs that might make any child feel that he could do just as well himself. For the week of children's songs and poems, the most important thing is to encourage them to make up their own songs and poems. A child often calls a poem a song. And what is the difference except one is spoken for lack of music while another’s sung because there is some music?

I would like to see the time come when people make up their own songs and sing them, to see strolling ballad singers go into nursery schools, just show up suddenly it's story time, to hear singing stories, long ones that go on and on, stories that are sung as well as read to children. How wonderful it would be to walk along the street in her children putting their own thoughts to music, making up their own songs.

Perhaps we should give children a simple song without words -a piece of music for them to put their own words too.

And they might do it.

Editor’s note: This is an abridged version of an article published in The Book of Knowledge, 1952.

ADVENTURES

When I was a child I knew a bird.

Sing chirp to a little fat robin.

His eye was black and his feathers half brown

And he flew through the air with his wings.

One night I met a little mouse,

Soft and gray in a quiet house.

I never moved but I looked at the mouse,

Soft and gray in the quiet house.

Once I caught a bug and put him in a glass

And in the night he lit his little light.

As green as grass.

Guess what bug it was in that glass.

Once I followed rabbit tracks up to a hollow tree.

I looked in at him and he looked out at me.

His ears were down and his eyes were bright

And his nose twitched constantly.

I put an apple there for his delight, then I stepped back

One step, Two steps, Three

And he shot like a bullet from out of that tree,

Leaving tracks in the snow

And the apple there for me.

ADVICE TO BUNNIES

Bunny, Sleepy Bunny,

Sleepy Bun Bun,

Don’t go to sleep

In the day’s hot sun.

Keep one eye open

And twitch your nose.

Keep your nose twitching

When the wind blows.

Bunny, Sleepy Bunny,

Sleepy Bun Bun,

Thump on the ground

When it’s time to run.

Keep one ear up

And keep one ear down.

Never go near

A house or a town.

Bunny Bunny Bunny,

Bunny Bun Bun,

When the moon is full

You can have your fun!

AHEAD OF THE TRAIN WAY DOWN THE TRACK

Ahead of the train

Way down the