Maurice Sendak, 1929 - 2012

Many decades ago, Bonnie and I read Where the Wild Things Are over and over and over to our children.  They acted out with gusto, "they roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed the terrible claws."  And, now we enjoy reading the same book to our grandchildren over and over and over, while they, too, roar their terrible roars.  So when Maurice Sendak died this week, it felt like a real loss to children everywhere. 

According to the New York Times, Sendak "wrenched the picture book out of the safe, sanitized world of the nursery and plunged it into the dark, terrifying, and hauntingly beautiful recesses of the human psyche."   Other books written and illustrated by Sendak include In the Night Kitchen, Higglety Pigglety Pop, Pierre, Alligators All Around, and Chicken Soup with Rice.

Fast Company made this observation about Sendak:

"Though he was routinely criticized by conservative groups for portraying what they saw as 'adult' themes, he stood his ground, maintaining that parents (and authors) need to be honest with children.  In his acceptance speech for the Caldecott Medal in 1964, he had this to say about how adults misrepresent childhood:

"'From their earliest years children live on familiar terms with disrupting emotions — fear and anxiety are an intrinsic part of their everyday lives, they continually cope with frustrations as best they can.  And it is through fantasy that children achieve catharsis.  It is the best means they have for taming wild things.'"

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