When our daughter was a toddler, she loved being read to. We had a nice collection of picture books and enjoyed reading to her. Something we noticed was that Goodnight Moon would make her cry. After a few pages, tears would well up, and soon she’d begin to sob.

For a time, we mixed up the order of the books to see if it was just that one causing the tears. It was. So as thoughtful, caring parents, what did we do? Whenever we had company, we’d say, “Watch this,” take out Goodnight Moon, and make our daughter cry.

Goodnight Moon is a picture book in which a young rabbit is tucked into a human bed in a human room. In the first third of the book, items in the room are listed, including a picture of a cow jumping over the moon, mittens, socks, a red balloon, a clock, and so on. The rest of the book is the little rabbit bidding each thing goodnight.

Why did Goodnight Moon feature a rabbit instead of a child? Because the illustrator, Clement Hurd, was better at drawing rabbits than drawing people.

Our daughter was not the only Mainer who had issues with Goodnight Moon. Anne Carroll Moore hated it.

Moore was born in 1871 in Limerick, Maine.

In those days, libraries did not welcome children. Many set fourteen as the minimum age of admittance. In 1896, the Pratt Institute Library in Brooklyn decided to change that and hired Moore to set up a children’s room. She was 26 and had just graduated from the Institute. The room featured small chairs, low shelves, and a large collection of youthful books. On the day the special room opened, children lined up around the block to get in.

Moore organized puppet shows and other special events. She developed a summer reading program. The good she did in the lives of young readers is incalculable, for other libraries followed her example.

After ten years at Pratt, Moore was hired to be the children’s librarian at the New York Public Library (NYPL), which had branches throughout New York. If she accepted a book at the main library, all the branch libraries in the state would buy it too. If, on the other hand, she rejected a book, the other NY libraries would reject it. Her decisions reached further than that. Many libraries across the country looked to the NYPL for guidance and followed its book choices.

Moore retired in 1941, but remained a powerful, influential force in the NYPL system. When Goodnight Moon was published in 1947, Moore rejected it. She is quoted as saying it was “an unbearably sentimental piece of work.” Some reports say she didn’t like the way it mixed fantasy and reality. Moore loved make-believe, but preferred the once upon a time variety.

Though Moore’s rejection of Goodnight Moon severely limited its early sales, the book gradually overcame its slow start and grew in popularity. By 1982, when our daughter wept over it, Goodnight Moon had become a beloved children’s classic.