Terrible Analogies

I just finished one of the most amazing books that I’ve ever had the good fortune to read. “Taut”, “thrilling”, and “suspenseful” are descriptors that don’t quite do this book justice. After spending four intimate days with this prodigious and shockingly absorbing read, I felt a pang of remorse after turning the final page. I just didn’t want the book to end.

The novel I’m talking about is, of course, Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown.

The scene is simple enough: An evil darkness has enveloped the good town, and sleep comes to those at a terrible price. And in his bedroom, helpless and afraid, one little boy must fight alone against an ominous, malicious presence for posession of his very soul…

An ancient, wrathful force has laid claim on an innocent town, granting life to all inanimate objects whose vile, destructive, and deadly nature can only be tempered by wishing them a heartfelt “goodnight”:

Out of a gripping, paralyzing dread that he’s missed wishing “goodnight” to a possessed object secreted away in a neglected dark alcove, our reluctant hero attempts to appease this overwhelming wanton power with an incantation meant to calm and beset any overlooked possessed object silently stalking him in the very room he’s meant to sleep in:

But the loathsome evil will not be so easily defeated, and soon begins to manifest itself in forms and vestiges meant the drive the mind of men insane. The malicious force appears before our hero in the form of a giant, decrepit, elderly bunny, and hissing though sharp fangs and  yellow-stained incisors to stay quiet in an attempt to counter the sting of the soothing “goodnights” from our unsung hero:

But the “goodnight” plan seems to be taking its toll on the maligned presence…or so it seems.

Desperate to maintain its stranglehold on the good townsfolk, the diminishing dark affliction summons the last remaining remnants of its one glorious power , sacrificing the life force of all objects touched by its presence, focusing the escaping energy into an evil that might just be too powerful for the collective will of the townsfolk to conquer…The Nobody.

Lucky for the us, our hero doesn’t know the meaning of the word “quit”:

Shudder! Let me tell ya, this book put a chill up my spine. I could not put this pager turner down. This is one of those rare novels that demands…nay, screams for a movie adaptation.

Spielberg, are you listening?

I hear that there’s a follow-up to Goodnight Moon entitled The Runaway Bunny.  You can bet that I’ll be camping out at the bookstore bright and early tomorrow morning to pick it up!  Stephen King, you ain’t got nuthin’ on Margaret Wise Brown!