My World (Board Book) Book

Just reread "My World," the sequel to "Goodnight Moon." It really is the disturbing, domestic psychodrama I remembered. The vast distances between characters (whose eyes never meet except for in one poignant dream sequence), the unspoken tension between the two parents, Mother sleeping alone, Daddy's final departure to the city, and the boy being equated with a toy all add up to trouble in paradise--something is deeply not right in the Rabbit home.

The book opens with the introduction of Mother's cryptic book, the contents of which the child is forbidden from beholding (we later observe over Mother's shoulder that it is filled with blank pages). We turn the page to see Mother and Child sitting in silence on opposite ends of the room, staring at the fire in grim silence.

"The fire burns. The pages turn."

Effective and creepy, no?

Later, the Child plays with his toy car, while Daddy (far away and with his back turned) works on his car. The Child's car "won't go very far." The reason for this is obvious when we glance at the illustration--the Child is attempting to run over his teddy bear. On the previous page, the teddy bear has been identified with the Child. The Child's car won't go very far; but, presumably, Daddy's car (or Daddy himself) will--and we will see this borne out near the end, when Daddy leaves the family.

The book ends with the cryptic question: "How many stripes on a bumble bee?" The drawing of the bee is deliberately vague, leaving the stripes uncountable, and echoing the Jamesian sense of foggy paranoia that has been the hallmark of the book. And the implied stinger of the bee ends the book on a suggestively threatening note.

I've only begun to scratch the surface of this eerie little book, but go seek it out and you'll find lots more. It's poignant, unsettling, and sees past the surface of the rising postwar suburban household to the lurking terrors roiling beneath.

Guess who was in the target three-year-old audience when this book was published in 1949? David freaking Lynch. Enjoy.