The book's creator

Maurice Sendak

Maurice Sendak (1928-2012) has been considered as one of the most important writers of children's literature in the twentieth century and one of the greatest children's book illustrators in history.

Awards

  • Hans Christian Andersen Award for Illustration (1970)
  • Laura Ingalls Wilder Award for a recognition of all of his work, awarded by the American Library Association (1983)
  • National Medal of Arts for his contribution to the arts in America (1996)
  • Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, an international award for children's literature, established in Sweden (2003)

(National Book Foundation)

Excerpt from "Maurice Sendak - 'You Have to Take the Dive' | Tate Shots" (beginning at 2.52 min.) by Tate

One of the unique influences Sendak had on children’s literature was in challenging the convention of a “childhood of innocence.” Instead, Sendak insisted on adults recognizing that childhood can be a difficult time where children suffer, and their parents or other adults don’t understand. Through this, Sendak has been credited not only with extending to children a rare form of respect, but also with putting adults back in touch with their own childhood experiences (Lanes 27).

"Children surviving childhood is my obsessive theme and my life's concern" (Sendak interview, 1993).

Biography

A child of Jewish immigrant parents who moved to Brooklyn, New York from Poland, Sendak has characterized his childhood as a dark time. His parents' immigration, right before World War II, was a chance decision that saved their lives. Growing up, Sendak was often reminded this his own family was arbitrarily lucky, while many of his Jewish relatives were killed during the Holocaust.

Sendak characterized his parents as "traumatized," "desperate," and angry people; his mother suffered from mental illness which often made her seem "bewildering and strange,” and to Sendak, it felt like she “lived in another world" (Brockes). Through her erratic and abrupt behaviors, she often frightened Sendak as a young child (Lanes and Morton 18).

As a child, Sendak was often sick and spent many hours drawing and staring outside of windows into the world beyond. Watching the outside world through a window felt like watching a silent movie to him, and Sendak learned early on to pay attention to the intricate details of movement in a “scene” (Lanes and Morton 16).

While he was a lifelong lover of art and drawing, it was only when a cousin encouraged him to "look beyond his narrow life in Brooklyn" (Brockes) that Sendak began to seriously pursue a career in drawing.

"I hid inside...this modest form called the children's book and expressed myself entirely" (Sendak interview, 2004).

Sendak landed his first job in illustrating in 1947, illustrating physics textbooks. He would continue to illustrate over a hundred more books throughout the next sixty years.

His first written book, Kenny's Window, was published in 1956, and he continued to write and illustrate fifteen more. These books have sold over fifty million copies and won numerous awards.

Sendak’s artistic styles tended to be expressionist in style; most of his work attempts to make the invisible visible: as he put it, “Artists must have more originality, [to] see beyond what is apparent” (qtd. in Lanes and Morton 25).

Late in the 1970s, Sendak began working as a set and costume designer. He also founded The Night Kitchen, a not-for-profit children's theatre.

Sendak lived with his partner, psychoanalyst Dr. Eugene Glynne, for fifty years, but he was never open about being gay until after Glynne's death in 2007. Sendak explains that coming out sooner would have devasted his parents and could have destroyed his career as a children's book writer (Berkowitz).

Sendak Interviews over the Years

Further reading

    Sources

    "A Conversation with Maurice Sendak." Moyers, 12 March 2004. https://billmoyers.com/content/bill-moyers-talks-maurice-sendak/. Accessed 22 July 2024.

    Berkowitz, Bill. "Amidst America's Book Banning Plague, We Celebrate Maurice Sendak." Daily Kos, 11 June 2023. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/6/11/2174683/-Amidst-America-s-Book-Banning-Plague-We-Celebrate-Maurice-Sendak. Accessed 20 July 2024.

    "Books." The Maurice Sendak Foundation, 2024. https://www.sendakfoundation.org/works/books. Accessed 22 July 2024.

    Brockes, Emma. “Maurice Sendak: ‘I refuse to lie to children’.” The Guardian, 2 October 2011. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/oct/02/maurice-sendak-interview. Accessed 22 July 2024.

    "Darien Library Centennial Lecture: Maurice Sendak." YouTube, uploaded by Darien Library, 21 May 2012, https://youtu.be/RYw_ae9NCWk?si=-0uNxhYM7xd0d9Mf.

    Fassler, Joe. “Maurice Sendak Scared Children Because He Loved Them.” The Atlantic, 9 May 2012. https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/05/maurice-sendak-scared-children-because-he-loved-them/256928/. Accessed 22 July 2024.

    Fox, Margalit. "Maurice Sendak, Author of Splendid Nightmares, Dies at 83." The New York Times, 8 May 2012. https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/09/books/maurice-sendak-childrens-author-dies-at-83.html?smid=url-share. Accessed 22 July 2024.

    Gross, Terry. "Children's Book Writer and Illustrator Maurice Sendak." NPR: Fresh Air. 22 Sept. 1993. https://freshairarchive.org/segments/childrens-book-writer-and-illustrator-maurice-sendak. Accessed 22 July 2024.

    ---. "Maurice Sendak on the Darkness of Children's Stories." NPR: Fresh Air. 18 May 1989. https://freshairarchive.org/segments/maurice-sendak-darkness-childrens-stories. Accessed 20 July 2024.

    ---. "Sendak on Childhood." NPR: Fresh Air. 15 April 1986. https://freshairarchive.org/segments/sendak-childhood. Accessed 20 July 2024.

    Lanes, Selma G., and Robert Morton. The Art of Maurice Sendak. Abrams, 1980.

    "Maurice Sendak." Harper Kids. https://www.mauricesendak.com/. Accessed 3 Aug. 2024.

    “Maurice Sendak.” National Book Foundation. https://www.nationalbook.org/people/maurice-sendak/. Accessed 22 July 2024.

    "Maurice Sendak - 'You Have to Take the Dive' | TateShots." YouTube, uploaded by Tate, 22 Dec. 2011, https://youtu.be/xXAjkLUv7dY?si=sX_juF5jnpkyFjtG.

    Nelson, Valerie J. “Maurice Sendak dies at 83; author of ‘Where the Wild Things Are’”. Los Angelos Times, 9 May 2012. https://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-maurice-sendak-20120509-story.html. Accessed 22 July 2024.

    The book's creator