Deconstructing "Goodnight Moon."

Magpie: "Goodnight Moon" -- A pleasing story, but one is left to wonder, why exactly does that old lady keep whispering "hush?" Is she a symbol of the post-modernist reader, who must "hush" the bedtimes stories of the past?

Carmen: And why is there an uneaten bowl of mush?

Magpie: "Goodnight nobody" is a call to man's inherent aloneness. No matter how many mice and kittens we may possess, we are at heart, nobody.

Carmen: and the red balloon?

Magpie: nuclear war. The Rabbit knows from Nena.

Carmen: And the great green room is preparing us for an appearance on Letterman.