Goodnight Moon

Can you see it? Those simple colors: green, blue, and red. Can you hear it? Those simple words, softly nestled amidst space, amidst emptiness. Emptiness. Let’s talk about that. ‘Liminal space,’ an internet aesthetic popularized in 2019, centers around images or videos of “places of transition that are often empty or abandoned.” The feelings invoked by these spaces include “eeriness, nostalgia, and apprehension.”

I think liminal space has been circulating American culture long before 2019. Goodnight Moon is proof of this. Let’s look at how Goodnight Moon fits into this trending internet aesthetic, or more accurately, how liminal space fits into it.

The characters: they are unknown. The plot; unexplained. We find ourselves in an unidentified room, void of action. We find ourselves in stillness. This room is filled with things, simple things. A comb, a brush, a bowl full of mush. These things, big or small, do not go unrecognized. For as dusk descends to true night, we look at these simple things, in this simple space, and we say goodnight. A small act, but one of gratitude. We say goodnight to the comb. To the brush and the bowl full of mush. We say goodnight to the moon, the little bears, and yes, even the chairs. We say goodnight to that mysterious place, and that is all. And it is over.

Goodnight Moon defines “bedtime story.” It encapsulates that lovely transition from day to night, from movement to stillness. A simple book, honoring its own simplicity. Capturing rest, compressing its essence into quiet green walls and the moon. Now, how Margaret Brown and Clement Hurd accomplished such a feat…that question remains (to me) unanswered.