Maurice Sendak is, uhm... odd.

[kama'aina mama]

So, a long while back I bought a three pack of Sendak books thru Scholastic Books, mostly to get "Where the Wild Things Are" at a great price. Well, DD has discovered the other two books. "In the Midnight Kitchen" which is sweet but rather odd, with several full monty drawings of an un-circed Mikey! Alrighty... the third book in the pack is "Outside, Over There". It is a re-telling your basic changling story... really sort of disturbing. What else has he written? Does the pattern of oddness continue? Am I the only one that finds these books sort of strange?

[Arduinna]

We loved In The Night Kitchen, but maybe we are just odd.

[kama'aina mama]

Oh don't get me wrong... It's a pretty good kind of weird. Bonnie loves it when Papa reads Night Kitchen... she chants along with the bakers and it cracks me up. But it was not a normal mind that came up with that! :LOL

[crazy_eights]

We had "In the Night Kitchen" when I was a kid (and I'm 35). I remember Mikey sailing out of his clothes and my sister and I giggling that you could see his penis (though I don't remember noticing that he was intact). How's this for you - I haven't read the book in probaby close to 30 years - "Milk, milk, milk in the batter, sift it, stir it, nothing the matter!" I believe are the words of the cooks? So it definately had an effect on me. It's one of those books from childhood that I could probably recite mostly from heart despite not seeing since childhood. Hmmmm - maybe I should seek out a copy for my kids!

BTW - Maurice Sendak illustrated the little bear books (and developed the cartoon show of the same name), Chicken Soup with Rice (anyone else remember Carole King singing this on Sesame Street?), Really Rosie, and Pierre (about a boy eaten by a lion b/c all he would say was "I don't care!"). He illustrated numerous other books, including the Mrs. Pigglewiggle books.

How's that? But, yeah, I would agree, he'a a bit "off". :LOL

[Quirky]

I love Maurice Sendak! I remember in Kindergarten checking out Higgelty Piggelty Pop from the library every other week! He has had some slightly left of normal books, but overall I think he is a national treasure.

Read Higgelty Piggelty Pop! It's so cool.

[kama'aina mama]

Very nice Chava! Right on the money!

My husband brought home a dvd for B that has Wild Things, Night Kitchen, "I Don't Care", Chix Soup and a few other things... I THOUGHT that sounded like ol' Carole! The nice thing is they aren't really animated, just the camera scanning the pages as the text is read.

[Dragonfly]

I loved "We Are All In The Dumps with Jack and Guy"! It's a great story about a non-traditional family - two homeless kids who "adopt" and care for an orphaned baby that they find. At least that's how I remember it - it's been a while.

Course, I really love anything by Maurice Sendak. I collected his books before ds was even in the cards and when I became pregnant just couldn't wait for the day that ds would want to really read them. One of my favorites is actually one that he illustrated - a story called "Dear Mili" that was discovered in letters that Wilhelm Grimm had written to a little girl that he knew.

True, he's a bit odd - but refreshing, I think . Once I read an interview where he said that he refuses to sign kid's books anymore. He said that he was once confronted by an angry four or five-year old whose mother was trying to force the little boy to hand his book over for signing. The kid admantly refused, scowled at him, and growled, "Don't crap up my book!" :LOL Apparently that was it for him...

[merpk]

Odd is a good description for the books ...

They had an exhibit about Sendak at the Children's Museum of Manhattan in NYC some time back (when we could still afford to go there ) ... but anyway, one thing that struck me was that he used pictures of his family members that had been killed in the Holocaust for the faces in his pictures. Don't know if that was for all his books or just a particular few, but ... anyway, these were relatives he'd never met, just knew from family photos.






:LOL And I never noticed the intact little boy in the batter either ... :LOL Thanks for pointing it out ...

[Viola]

Originally posted by Dragonfly
Once I read an interview where he said that he refuses to sign kid's books anymore. He said that he was once confronted by an angry four or five-year old whose mother was trying to force the little boy to hand his book over for signing. The kid admantly refused, scowled at him, and growled, "Don't crap up my book!" :LOL Apparently that was it for him...

Hey, I bet that was my husband! He hates when anyone writes in books, even if you are just putting someone's name in it. I like to write little inscriptions in the books I give as gifts, but apparently that is a horrible thing to do. We have some of my husband's old Sendak books, but only a few titles. One of them is a Little Bear book that he illustrated.

[3girls1boy]

Yes, I agree that "Outside, Over There" is definitely a strange and somewhat disturbing story.

It was the main character, Ida, though, that let me see Ida as an okay name for a child and not just an old lady's name.

My third daughter is named Ida, and so we now read that book fairly often.

[TigerTail]

we have a print from 'dear mili' on the wall. we love him. (even named my second son max, tho' sam is my real 'wild thing'!) and sam loves little bear so much, he said he is dead till it comes on (how's that for disturbing?) he was just pretending, laying very still... creepy, tho'!

suse

[3boysmom]

We LOVE In the Night Kitchen! I was so happy to find an intact boy in a kids book! When my oldest (now 12) was small, he had no intact friends at all, so it was really great to let him see another little boy that looked like him! We all have the whole book memorized...it's one of those books that I'll never part with.

[spero]

Maurice Sendak's work is definitely quite "dark-humored"!

I have this strange little book, "I Saw Esau", a collection of childhood poems/chants, etc. which is illustrated by MS...there are several illustrations of naked boys and they are all intact. And talk about disturbing images...

In the chapter "Malicious Guile", there is a little ditty that begins "I one my mother/I two my mother..." and ends with "I eight my mother". The accompanying illustration shows a nursing baby who devours his mother, bit by bit, after she dozes off with him at the breast.

Another drawing, accompanying a poem beginning, "I do not like thee, Doctor Fell,..." illustrates a pig as a doctor with an axe, chopping off a defiant-looking boy's limbs one by one, ending with his decapitation

The reason I got the book was for the illustration accompanying a poem called "To the Rain" (rain, rain, go away,..."). It shows a mom and her baby caught outside in a storm. The mom morphs into a tree to protect her frightened baby. He lays down and goes to sleep, and when the sun comes out, she morphs back into a mom and carries the sleeping baby away. I just LOVE that one.

[mahdokht]

*

[DebraBaker]

We love "where the wild things are" and "inside the night kitchen" but I've never seen that other book.

He *is* odd in a good way (at least the books we have)

sort of makes me feel like I'm a normal person by contrast

[elfie]

Remember these books were written in the 60's I believe.....a lot of stuff was greatly and beautifully odd!

We have the CD of the music of 3 of his books and "Pierre" has become one of my favorite songs...I listen to it when the kids aren't around too. My dd and I also say my favorite line in Where the Wild Things Are to each other : "Oh please don't go, We'll eat you up, we love you so"

[ladylee]

DD has a taste for the macabre and is a big fan of Wild Things and Seven Little Monsters.

[carmen veranda]

We love them too....He is odd and we love that, as we are odd too.
Roald Dahl is very odd too...

[mamaduck]

I saw a documentary about Marice Sendak when I was in college as part of a "juvenille literature" course. I wish I could rember more about it. He *is* odd though. He is very reclusive -- almost to the point of being hermit-like. He has a reputation of not being very kind -- and somewhat hostile towards children...

Oh, and I remember that he draws his illustrations in miniature and his publisher has to have them enlarged. Odd.

[sadie_sabot]

HAs anyone seen labrynth, with David Bowie? I saw a second of it the other day and wondered f it is, essentially, the same story as Outside over there?