Maurice Sendak

In 1963 and 1964 two landmark children's books were published -- In 1963 Ezra Jack Keats' The Snowy Day and in 1964 Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are. Both won the Caldecott Medal and both changed children's publishing forever.

The books could hardly be more different -- from the colors used, the artistic techniques, the style, the themes -- and the two protagonists -- Max and Peter.

Who's your favorite? Are you a Max person or a Peter person? It says a lot about your personality. Read the books and decide, then compare your results with your friends and family.

I'll tell. I love them both, but I'm partial to Peter.

The Ezra Jack Keats Foundation has sponsored a bookmaking contest for New York City school children for the past 23 years and this year the winners are on display at Hudson Park in our second floor children's room. The artistry and variety are amazing.

Come by Hudson Park's sunny and lively children's room and take a look at the work of book designers of the future! The books will be on display until May 15th.

Last week in the South Court training rooms, I gave my presentation “Changing Styles in Children’s Literature.” Although I’ve given this talk on various occasions over the last few years, doing it again always focuses my attention on the strange power of children’s books and sets my mind spinning back to my own dim past, when I would stare up at the family shelf of books in a kind of awed yet uncomprehending fascination. I might not have been aware of much else, but I already knew that those books were the key to some unknown yet highly desirable place. They were full of pictures which created interesting puzzles for me to resolve and indecipherable words which nonetheless buzzed with elusive possibilities.

Scientifically speaking, learning to read is a step-by-step process, each incremental bit building up a solid foundation. In memory, however, it seems much more of a magical transformation. My mother would read the words, I would look at the pictures, and they were always two separate levels of enjoyment. Until a certain memorable day when I began to recognize the actual words myself (something like, “Brontosaurus was a plant-eater”) and suddenly the whole enterprise gelled into one big, amazing package. I would no longer have to make up my own stories to go along with the pictures. And those blocks of text took on a resonance I had never even suspected.

In some ways, this process of integrating words and pictures mirrors the two faces of children’s book illustration, particularly during the twentieth century. One the one hand, there are the artists who stress the individual illustration, without too much concern over the accompanying text. On the other hand, there are those who attempt to blend text and image into a richer whole. Throughout my own readings prior to giving my talk, two names kept emerging: Arthur Rackham and Maurice Sendak. They are the two inescapable masters of children’s picture-making, although each seems to represent an opposite end of the spectrum.  read more »

This time next year, on October 16, 2009, the Spike Jonze film adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are is scheduled to open. The film, shot with real actors and a combination of live-action puppetry and CGI, was originally scheduled to be in theaters now. I’ve read that Warner Brothers apparently was not happy with the finished product and test screening audiences felt it was too scary for children. I’m not sure Jonze necessarily set out to make a children’s film.

My first thought when I heard that someone was attempting a live-action CGI puppet film adaptation of the children’s classic was “good luck”. I then made a quick mental list of directors who could possibly pull it off. Michel Gondry was on the short list, as was Spike Jonze. It is interesting that both of these directors got their start in music, directing some of the most memorable music videos ever made. Their feature films haven’t been too bad either. With the artistic vision of Spike Jonze and the help of the capable Dave Eggers on the screenplay, Where the Wild Things Are promises to be one of the most original offerings of 2009.

Maurice Sendak created Where the Wild Things Are when he was living just east of Jefferson Market Library in a basement apartment at 29 West 9th Street, adding another literary landmark for you to check out next time you are in the neighborhood.