The Dark Wood of the Golden Birds

“I fell instantly under the spell of this crepuscular story aglow with love and longing . . . Margaret’s love letter to the mystery of death . . . bittersweet and beautiful like the transience of life itself.” —Maria Popova, from the Afterword

A Marginalian Editions rediscovery, by the author of Goodnight Moon: Margaret Wise Brown’s little-known, deeply moving modern fable about love and loss.

In 1948, a year after Margaret Wise Brown had enriched the world of children’s literature with Goodnight Moon, the love of her life fell gravely ill. Attending her partner’s bedside every day, she faced her inconsolable grief in the best way she knew: She wrote a love letter in the form of a children’s book. The Dark Wood of the Golden Birds brings us into a hushed and numinous world, illuminated by Brown’s signature poetic prose.

The story begins near the house of an old man who tends to honeybees and asparagus while living on the edge of a magic forest. Behind his home lies the dark wood—a place from which “there is no return”—where golden birds sing through the night and day. When two orphaned children wander onto his farm, he gives them a home and he warns them never to venture past the edge of the wood. When the old man falls ill, however, the boy decides to brave the unknown in search of a cure. What secret knowledge will he find in the dark wood?

With lush new illustrations by Ofra Amit and a foreword by Maria Popova, this rediscovered work of uncommon beauty and tenderness lights a path through love and loss for readers of all ages.