RIP Maurice Sendak
Controller_7
4,052 Posts
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/09/books/maurice-sendak-childrens-author-dies-at-83.html
Where the Wild Things Are was huge for me as a kid and it still is. Amazing illustrations and a really fun story with a great sense of imagination. In an interview, he talked about how the wild things were based on his relatives. Old, Eastern European people who would come over for dinner and talk funny and pinch his cheeks and say things like "I'll eat you up." puts a fun twist on it when you know that.
This is by no means his only accomplishment, but what a huge accomplishment.
Where the Wild Things Are was huge for me as a kid and it still is. Amazing illustrations and a really fun story with a great sense of imagination. In an interview, he talked about how the wild things were based on his relatives. Old, Eastern European people who would come over for dinner and talk funny and pinch his cheeks and say things like "I'll eat you up." puts a fun twist on it when you know that.
This is by no means his only accomplishment, but what a huge accomplishment.
Comments
i'll be pulling out my "where the wild things are" record tonight and play it between Beastie Boys albums, lol
RIP
^^^ A great exhibit came through the Contemporary Jewish Museum here in SF in 2009. From the program description: "The sadness and complexities of the Holocaust, the rich memories of his parent's lives in Europe, and his own childhood experiences with his Jewish relatives, are currents that run through all of Sendak's work."
The exhibit was great, though it put a little bit of a darker twist on the whole relative-pinching-cheeks-thing, basically suggesting that he was afraid of them, and that they become monsters (wild things) in his childhood imagination. Apparently a lot of that was tied up with the pall that the Holocaust cast over his boyhood home. (Some cool early sketches here: http://www.thecjm.org/index.php?option=com_ccevents&scope=exbt&task=detail&oid=42)
Not sure the extent to which his being gay influenced his work, but that was also covered in the exhibit.
Sad to hear of his passing. The images of the Wild Things looms large in my childhood memories, as they apparently did in his own.
Maurice Sendak z''l
It's a weird story though, the moral is that you should care about things because it sucks to get eaten by a lion. Unless I'm missing something.
No, I think that's it. Childrens books are full of questionable lessons. I realize that now that I'm older.
In 6th grade i saw a live version of this at a Barnes and Noble w/ a child actress Tisha Campbell.
It was just a promo for the Really Rosie play.
The cartoon movie would come on back in the day on like CBS during primetime when it started at 7:00 PM.