I was so saddened to hear that Maurice Sendak died today at the age of 83. He created so many magical worlds for children to explore—none more famous than the brilliant, Where the Wild Things Are. This was one of Wolfie’s absolute favorites when he was little. Our copy is taped and dog eared from many bed time readings….it makes me happy just to see its well worn, well-loved pages. Wolfie had a “Max” plushie as well as 2 of the “Monsters” and I can still see his little three year old self walking around with them in hand.
All of Maurice Sendak’s other books are marvelous too. One of my favorites is the lesser known, What Do You Say, Dear? (1958) which was a collaboration with Sesyle Joslin. I loved it as a kiddo. The illustrations are so awesome!
And then there’s In the Night Kitchen. Which is a little surreal but weirdly wonderful! And of course “The Nutshell Library†(1962), a boxed set of four tiny volumes including “Alligators All Around,†“Chicken Soup With Rice,†“One Was Johnny†and “Pierre.â€Â If you can find it, the Where the Wild Things Are (and Other Maurice Sendak Stories) DVD is really great….it has Carole King singing folksy cool musical versions of all the songs. Did you read these books to your kiddos? Did they love them too?
Such a creative mind….Mr. Sendak, we bow down before you. I hope wherever you are you continue to make mischief of one kind….and another.
sad to hear and this reminds me of the cool “Where the Wild Things Are/Night Kitchen” exhibit that used to be in the Metreon in the 90s. I was sad it went away before I had kids.
that book is a favorite here too. 🙁
Me too! I was lucky to visit it once, but I remember when the boys were all into Where the Wild Things Are I was so sad it didn’t exist anymore…
Those little books like chicken and rice are wonderful. I remember loving their size just as much as the lovely pictures and stories inside and What do you Say was my all time favorite! There were some recent interviews of Maurice Sendak that were bananas! He had an extraordinary life too!
The Peach loves the little Bear series that he illustrated. So sweet and calming and just plain beautiful.
YES!!! Little Bear…I forgot to include that. SO wonderful.
This makes me so so sad, we are on vacation at the beach and my husband didn’t tell me (he saw the news come across twitter) because he did’t want me to cry. I remember my mom reading me all of those books to me as a kid and I have them to read to my son Judah
OH, gosh. My heart just sunk when I read the news yesterday.
Did you guys happen to listen to this interview with Maurice?
http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=144077273&m=144381898
warning: get out your tissues.
oh wow i’ll have to listen to it. I heard that there was a great interview that NPR was running and I meant to look it up!