Goodnight nobody?

GOOD question! My husband and I have pondered this same exact thing!

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Hubby and I believe it is just the ramblings of a small child who doesn't want to go to bed, putting it off by saying goodnight to everything in the room. And, if you notice, the "goodnight nobody" comes before the "goodnight mush", which is probably an indication of the bunny's love of mush.

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He was originally going to say "Goodnight bunny," on that page, but after the cannibalistic rabbit in the painting caught and ate the bunny, there was no one left to say "Goodnight" to, hence, "Goodnight Nobody."

(Seriously, check out the painting!)

Amy
http://prettybabies.blogspot.com
Revealing the Universe's Mysteries, one children's book at a time!

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Amy, I have a question about the painting you are referring to. Are you talking about the painting of the bunny fishing on the page that says "Goodnight room"? If so, that is an illustration from another of Margaret Wise Brown's books entitled "Runaway Bunny". That painting is an illustration depicting the baby bunny telling his mommy that he would be a trout in a stream to run away from her. The mother replies that she would be the fisherman who catches the trout.
"Runaway Bunny" is another really great story. The premise behind is that no matter where the baby bunny goes or what he chooses to do, his mommy will always be the one who finds/rescues him. In the end, the bunny decides not to runaway if his mommy will always find him.
As for the "goodnight nobody" mystery...I'm stumped as well!

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Adrienne - cannibalistic bunnies are funnier!! :)

I am familiar with Runaway Bunny. My husband and I call it Stalker Bunny. Because if the big bunny were the ex boyfriend instead of the Mom, or something, woah.

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I've been reading Goodnight Moon to my two year old for many months. I don't get it either. He likes it so I just go with it, though Dinosaur's Binkit is the current favorite nighttime ritual book.

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I'll have to drag it out and look at it again. We wore it out when the girls were little.

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Although, thinking about it a little more, I agree with Cancol. The child has run out of tangible object to continue the bedtime stall.

I remember, as I'm sure many of you do, the kids with their bedtime prayers. If I let them, they could tie up another 15 minutes or so while working their through all of us, their cousins, their aunts and uncles, the pets. If all else failed, they'd start on the kids in their class.

Rebecca can still turn a simple table grace into a sermon.

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Drat. I can understand my skipping a letter from time to time on a sticky keyboard but an entire word?

Should have been "while working their way through"

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Why so literal? As the story winds down, and my voice tends to get softer and quieter, it seems to go along with the drooping eyes of my son and hopefully his upcoming sweet dreams. Its about the night melting into sleep and dreams. It is actually one of my favorite pages, besides getting to draw out the hushhhhh of "good night to the old lady whispering hushhhhh".

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It's a classic story for children. You just read it, accept it, and move on! There's lots of craziness in the literary world of childrens stories. The Old Woman who Lived in a Shoe...spanked them all soundly, etc. Call CPS on that woman! Humpy Dumpty....a bad acid trip? Little Red Riding Hood - Grandma gets eaten alive by a wolf in her own bedroom? The things we read to our children..... :)

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I read this to my son literally every night and have done so for about a year now. I think "nobody" fits a lot of rolls, first, to maintain cadence, next to reference the empty space, ie the distance between here and there, that has no name in the room, and finally, as others have said, to stall.

If we want to be philosophical about it, it probably references a higher power that has no name.

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When you were a kid, you didn't have such stories? Goodnight moon is 60 years old!
But I agree with the other posters, it's more stalling before going to bed.

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Two cheers for Mike K's explanation. A simple reference to "the space between", or perhaps it's the bunny's ironic realization that he's talking to himself in an empty room.

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My impression was always that "nobody" recognizes a child's sense that there is often "somebody" there that we can't see, hear, or touch. I remember feeling this frequently as a child - and on rare occasions still feel it. Most of the time it is benign, like the person you're talking to when you talk to yourself. Sometimes it can get scary, like when you feel an unexplained need to check for intruders in your closets and under your bed. This "nobody" was probably the being through which clothing hanging on a hook could become the bogeyman after the lights went out when I was little. "Goodnight nobody" is acknowledging that usually benign somebody and bidding him to remain benign while the child is sleeping. That's my interpretation.

I guess the really cool thing about good literature is that it allows so many rich interpretations.

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