In her essay “In The Great Green Room,” Anne E. Fernald discusses the surprising influence of literary modernism on Margaret Wise Brown, author of the legendary children’s book Goodnight Moon (1946). Or maybe it’s not so surprising: after all, Brown saw children as “an audience sensitive to the sheer elements of the English language.” A five-year-old, she remarked, was “as intelligent an audience in rhythm and sound as the maddest poet’s heart could desire.”
Of all the modernists, Brown’s favorite author was Gertrude Stein. In honor of World Book Day—an international celebration of young readers—we made the quiz below. Can you tell which lines belong to canonical modernist Gertrude Stein, and which to children’s author Margaret Wise Brown?
