Photo by fozylet, shared via
Flickr.
Maurice Sendak is best known for two things: Publishing
Where the Wild Things Are, one of the most popular children's books of the twentieth century, and for the banning of
In the Night Kitchen, one of his most poetic and brilliant books, because it featured a drawing of a naked child. (The American Library Association named
In the Night Kitchen one of the 25 most banned or challenged books in the period of 1990-2000). Others might know of his popular illustrations of Elsa Homelund Minarek's
Little Bear books.
Sendak's birthday was back in June, but the 92nd St. Y realized they should really be celebrating his birthday, so they're
doing it today. We figured we'd follow suit with a week's worth of discussion about the the work of Maurice Sendak,
We'll also be giving away five copies of Scholastic Video's latest, greatest edition of Sendak's film adaptations to date, a DVD which collects the animated versions of
Where the Wild Things Are,
In the Night Kitchen, and the songs Carol King sang to animated versions of Sendak's Nutshell Library set of stories ("Alligators All Around," "Pierre," "One Was Johnny," and "Chicken Soup With Rice"), and includes French and Spanish-language versions of the title story. You can get the DVD from
Scholastic's video store or from
Amazon.com.
For your daily chance to win a copy of Scholastic's blockbuster Maurice Sendak video, comment on that day's Maurice Sendak post, beginning with this one. We'll select five winners Saturday from comments on Monday through Friday's Sendak posts, based on their contribution to the conversation or answer to the question posed in the post. The five posts will be appearing on several different ZRecs Network blogs, so if you don't read them all, check in at our network hub so you don't miss a great discussion (not just about Sendak but about the implications of his work - about parenting "wild things," about addressing frightening issues in an accessible way, about storytelling, about gardening and fantasy) and another chance to win this great video.
Here's what we'd like to know today: Does your family have a favorite Sendak book? If it's one of the ubiquitous two above, tell us why you or your child love it so much. If you have a lesser-known favorite, share it here so readers can discover another one of his great books for themselves!
- Jeremiah
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Our favorite is Where the Wild Things Are. My two boys are often called “Wild Thing.” They love the story.
Our favorites are the Nutshell Library books. Carole King’s soundtrack for Really Rosie is without a doubt my all-time favorite children’s album, and my 2 1/2 year old daughter knows many of the songs quite well. She loves having me sing along as she flips through the pages of the books, especially “One was Johnny”. This has been a great way to distract her during diaper changes! “Chicken Soup With Rice” is her other favorite from the Nutshell Library - it has a lot of memorable phrases that she thinks are funny, like “far off Spain or Old Bombay” and “it laps it up and roars for more”. The Nutshell Library can’t match the artwork in Sendak’s two best-known books, but having the music to go along with the books makes them a lot of fun for us to read.
Hi, Maurice Sendak tends to write book that one really likes or dislikes! Our family delights in reading most of his books. “Outside, Over There” is one such book we delight in of his. Ida is a young girl whose father is away at sea. Her mother pines in the arbor. This leaves Ida to care for her baby sister. She does resent having to care for her, though. One night, the baby sister is kidnapped by goblins. Ida half-heartedly goes in search of her.
She does manage to overcome the child goblins and her sister and her return home. The themes in this book are responsibility, siblings and jealousy. It could be a frightening read for children that are too young because of the goblins. Thanks, Cindi
Where the wild things are… a definate fav. espically when the little ones are being a bit monstorous. :)
I think our favorite is A Hole is to Dig, written by Ruth Krauss and illustrated by Maurice Sendak. It consists of various children’s definitions of common things and my girls always add their own. And of course MS’s illustrations always get a chuckle!
Where the Wild Things Are was my daycare kids’ FAVORITE book. They had the entire story memorized and always loved to have a crazy party in the middle :) We even had a Where the Wild Things Are week - we decorated our room from floor to ceiling. What a great story :)
Oh, we LOVE the Nutshell Library too, for just the reasons Chris K mentioned above. We have the soundtrack to Really Rosie and my kids learned their ABCs by singing Alligators All Around, and the months of the year from Chicken Soup With Rice, and whenever anyone dares to say “I don’t care,” the rest of us reply with “PIERRE!”
We also love Where the Wild Things Are, A Hole is to Dig, Outside, Over There and one I haven’t seen mentioned yet: Higglety Pigglety Pop or There Must Be More To Life, the story of a dog who has everything but still searches for meaning.
My son loves to count the trees that grow in Max’s room as it melts away into his wild world. And, of course, he loves it when my husband roars his terrible roar etc., but he pretends to be afraid!
Where the Wild Things Are is our favorite - the artwork and illustrations are probably why. There is just so much to look at!
To be honest, no we don’t have a favourite by him, but we are new to the US (lived here 1 year) and new to kids books. My son is 3 but has only just gotten into Really enjoying books. We have however, found that we love Shel Silverstein, who wrote the Giving tree, since we’ve been here.
I will look out for Maurice’s books. Thanks.
We love where the wild things are in this house, a fantastic fantasy world. - Such enthralling storyline for children.
My sons book that he hangs onto every word at the moment is, “Pierre” - he gets to read 5 books with me before bed and Pierre is in there every day! - I have learnt not to steer him away from reading the same ones over and over, he can’t read as such yet but he knows the words of certain books verbatum.
my kids love where the wild things are too, and what is really neat is our high school where one of our kids goes is doing it this spring for a play and the younger ones are all excited about it
I’ve loved Where the Wild Things Are since I was little, and I can’t wait until my baby daughter is old enough to appreciate it too! I look forward to reading that and In the Night Kitchen with her.
I can not wait for my baby to enjoy MS’s books. I have such a love of In the Night Kitchen, I remember vividly how much I wanted to slide into the milk, it is one of my earliest memories (I won’t say how many years ago). As an adult, the fact that Night Kitchen has been so widely banned has made me love it even more. I feel great sadness for children who will not be allowed to read it. It is not a dangerous book, nor are people who are gay, like myself and Sendak.
Our 18 month old loves “Chicken Soup with Rice”. We have this tiny book that she carefully turns the pages of and asks about the pictures. Just her speed at the moment :) I personally love “In the Night Kitchen” and have for years. Long before I had children I bought a copy to share with all my unknowing friends (and to reread myself of course). Sadly, it never came back. Oh, but it will!
My husband has long been fond of Where the Wild Things Are. Back when we were dating, I bought him a little stuffed character from the book. He still has it.
Where the Wild Things Are is the only Sendak book we’ve read so far, but based on these posts, we should definitely branch out a bit more! My three year old son loves Where the Wild Things Are, he loves the story and the pictures. We find ourselves quoting it now and then for fun. Like this morning my one year old had climbed into an empty laundry basket and my husband was pushing him around in his “private boat.”
Thanks so much for the info about Sendak. Too Shy to Stop writer Ariela Rose just did a piece about the Sendak exhibit in Philadelphia for our magazine. You can read the article here.