R.I.P. Maurice Sendak

Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images via Slate

Maurice Sendak has died at the age of 83.
Obituary from Reuters

Sendak died in Danbury, Connecticut, from complications from a recent stroke, the Times was told by Sendak's long-time editor, Michael di Capua. Sendak had lived in nearby Ridgefield, Connecticut.
Sendak, who was born in Brooklyn in 1928, illustrated more than 50 books during his career and won a number of prizes for his drawings. The Swedish government awarded him the Hans Christian Anderson Award for children's book illustration in 1970.

He was a genius of children's literature although he proclaimed that he merely wrote for himself and never thought about the audience, and that's probably why kids of all ages found his books to be refreshing and profound.


I found this great quote on Goodreads

“Once a little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it. I loved it. I answer all my children’s letters — sometimes very hastily — but this one I lingered over. I sent him a card and I drew a picture of a Wild Thing on it. I wrote, “Dear Jim: I loved your card.” Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said, “Jim loved your card so much he ate it.” That to me was one of the highest compliments I’ve ever received. He didn’t care that it was an original Maurice Sendak drawing or anything. He saw it, he loved it, he ate it.”

He was interviewed at length by Bill Moyers for PBS back in 2004 - full transcript here - and spoke of many things including the background of Where the Wild Things Are. I've always found this fascinating because it is counterintuitive to what most people consider the "nice" thoughts one needs for writing a children's classic:

 MOYERS: Why did you write WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE?

SENDAK: I don't know. I don't have an answer. Let me tell you of its origin — it's brief. I had done a series of books and in those days back in the '50s, you couldn't do a picture book unless you'd done a number of books that paid off somewhat or at the very least showed that you had more talent. And you can move onto the next.

There's not much money back then. I don't think Madonna would have been interested in writing a book in the '50s, okay? So, it was my turn. I had earned my 10 years apprenticeship of doing any number of books. Now, I could do a book. And my editor's name was Ursula Nordstrom. And she without equivocation was the best.

She was this torrential woman, passionate woman, who could spot talent 10 miles away. I had no education. I did not go to art school. My drawing was so crude. I had shines on shoes like in Mutt 'n' Jeff in Walt Disney. And she saw through that monstrous crudity and cultivated me, really made me grow up. And then, it was time to do my own picture book.

And I came to her with a title that was "Where the Wild Horses Are." And she just loved that. It was so poetic and evocative. And she gave me a contract based on "Where the Wild Horses Are." And then, it turned out after some very few months to her chagrin and anger, I couldn't draw horses. The whole book would have to be full of horses to make the book make sense.

And when I tried a number of things, I remember the acid tones. She said, "Maurice, what can you draw?" Okay. Cause she was investing in a full color picture book. That was an enormous thing back then.


And so, I thought well things, things. Could be anything I could draw without negotiating things I can't draw. And then, we were at… someone had died. My brother, sister and I were sitting shiva, the Jewish ceremony.

And all we did was laugh hysterically. I remember our relatives used to come from the old country, those few who got in before the gate closed, all on my mother's side. And how we detested them. The cruelty that children… you know, kids are hard.

And these people didn't speak English. And they were unkempt. Their teeth were horrifying. Nose… unraveling out of their hair, unraveling out of their noses. And they'd pick you up and hug you and kiss you, "Aggghh. Oh, we could eat you up."

And we know they would eat anything, anything. And so, they're the wild things. And when I remember them, the discussion with my brother and sister, how we laughed about these people who we of course grew up to love very much, I decided to render them as the wild things, my aunts and my uncles and my cousins. And that's who they are.


MOYERS: So, the wild things are your extended…

SENDAK: Relatives. They're…

MOYERS: Jewish relatives.

SENDAK: Jewish relatives.

MOYERS: With the WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE, it created a big sensation. I mean, librarians would not put it in the… in fact, there's one librarian who said, "This is not a book you leave in the presence of sensitive children to find in the twilight."

SENDAK: Yes. There was a torrent of, "Keep this book away from children. This is…"

MOYERS: Why?

SENDAK: I think probably it was the first American children's book — God knows I didn't set out to do this, it was my first picture book. But, I was talking about kids I knew and me. A book, an American book, where the child actually daunts his mother and threatens her.

No way. No way. And then on top of that, she puts him in a room and denies him food. No way. Mamas never do that kinda thing. Kids never get pissed at their parents. Unheard of. And the worst offense, he comes home. She leaves food for him. And he's not punished. Not punished.

MOYERS: When you had Max get mad at his mother knowing… did you know that this was going to enrage people? That they…

SENDAK: No. My mother got mad at me all the time. It didn't seem an extraordinary thing at all. I mean, it seemed to me she was always mad. And in Yiddish, she called me the equivalent of "wild thing" and chased me all over the house.

We used to hide in the street and hope she forgot before I crept up in the evening. It was all natural as your father took swipes at you that you dodge. And your mother was rough, rough, rough.



MOYERS: Were you ever sent to bed without supper?

SENDAK: I often went to bed without supper cause I hated my mother's cooking. So, to go to bed without supper was not a torture to me. If she was gonna hurt me, she'd make me eat. That's true, too.

But, it was a really unkempt, unruly small apartment, three children, father who worked so hard, mother who had problems emotionally and mentally. And we didn't know that. Your mommy's supposed to be perfect.

She should be there for you, love you, kiss you. Every movie we ever saw, Claudette Colbert hugging her children. We knew what it should be like. And it wasn't. And we had no sympathy at all.

MOYERS: What I hear you describing is not a story that you just made up. It's a story you experienced.

SENDAK: Yeah. Well, that's what art is. I mean, you don't make up stories. You live your life. And I was not Max. I did not have the courage that Max had. And I didn't have the mother that Max had. Who would give you, love you and you know this little scene which is so trivial. It happens at everybody's house, happens every Tuesday and Thursday.

He has a fit. She has a fit. It'll go on till he's about 35, goes into therapy, wonders why he can't get married, okay? Cause people often say, "What happens to Max?" And it's such a coy question that I always say, "Well, he's in therapy forever. He has to wear a straitjacket when he's with his therapist."

Sendak, in spite of his humble beginnings or perhaps specifically because of them, was a unique grown-up who still remembered everything about childhood, and that touched a chord in all of us. He gave us some of the most memorable books of childhood: Where the Wild Things Are, In the Night Kitchen, and Chicken Soup with Rice. Over his long career, he also collaborated as an illustrator on many other books.

R.I.P. Maurice Sendak. I will picture you sailing away to Where the Wild Things are and becoming their King Supreme. No child-at-heart will ever forget you!