Maurice Sendak died yesterday at the age of 83. An important piece of my sons' childhood is gone. It is important to acknowledge the great talent of this man--and to say a proper, if sad, goodbye.
Maurice Sendak was popular in our house, especially Where the Wild Things Are. This is a great book for running, jumping, climbing, grabbing the rope and swinging wildly across the little creek far below (but don't lose your grip and fall into the poison ivy below) active boys.
My children grew up surrounded by books . . . we had no television. This was purposeful. This was long before the electronic devices that enchant today's kids--devices that, in my opinion, lure children from the rich experiences of reading and real communications with others. My older son John started reading a book a day when he was about five.
When older, John had an autographed set of Madeleine D'Engle's trilogy [A Wrinkle in Time, The Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet.] He was adamant that books were to be read without breaking the spine. [Well, that was after he ate "Goodnight Moon" when he was two because he associated it with having to stay in bed for a nap for an hour whether he wanted to sleep or not and also because I made the mistake of leaving it in his crib.]
David cut his teeth on Richard Scarry. We nearly wore out Cars and Trucks and Things that Go. David used to run off to the children's section of our local bookstore and come back clutching a book, saying "Here's the Richard Scarry book I need today!" And each child had a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf in his bedroom that was packed with marvelous books.
Many parents felt that Sendak's books were not appropriate for children. Many librarians put paper "diapers" over the anatomically correct illustrations in his book "In the Night Kitchen" to cover up the penises. Sendak did not sugar coat childhood. My feeling was that the books celebrated a child's right to express frustration about things not being "fair," and how they felt about being put in "time-out" and sent to bed without your dinner. But then, there was the "she'll love me forever" feeling created when Max finds his dinner waiting for him when he returns from where the wild things are . . . "and it was still warm." Kids need that kind of reassurance.
