Maurice Sendak – Creator of Where the Wild Things Are
If you have children you no doubt have heard of Maurice Sendak… One of his most popular books is “Where the Wild Things Are”!
Maurice Sendak was considered the most important children’s book artist of the 20th century, whose works tore the picture book out of the ordinary, happy, safe, sanitized world of the nursery and plunged it into the dark, terrifying and nightmarish recesses of the human psyche.
Sendak was born to Polish Jewish immigrant parents in Brooklyn New York on June 10, 1928. At an early age he was exposed to the reality of death and tragedy. His childhood, described as was a “terrible situation” was filled with grief and horror from the his extended family being killed during the Holocaust.
As a child Sendak was sickly with health problems and was confined to his bed where he spent time drawing. At the age of twelve he decided to become an illustrator after watching Walt Disney’s film Fantasia.
As he grew up — lower class, Jewish, gay — he felt permanently shunted to the margins of things. “All I wanted was to be straight so my parents could be happy,” he told The New York Times in a 2008 interview. “They never, never, never knew.” He lived with his partner, psychoanalyst Dr. Eugene Glynn, for 50 years before Glynn’s death in May 2007.
Sendak’s illustrations were first published in 1947 in a textbook titled Atomics for the Millions by Dr. Maxwell Leigh Eidinoff. He spent much of the 1950s illustrating children’s books written by others before beginning to write his own stories.
In 1963 Sendak masterpiece was published Where the Wild Things Are which was a shocking contrast found in typical children’s book of the time.
He died on May 8, 2012, at the age of 83 from complications of a stroke.
Maurice Sendak Quotes
“There must be more to life than having everything.”
― Maurice Sendak
“I cry a lot because I miss people. They die and I can’t stop them. They leave me and I love them more.”
― Maurice Sendak
“And Max, the king of all wild things, was lonely and wanted to be where someone loved him best of all.”
― Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are
“You cannot write for children. They’re much too complicated. You can only write books that are of interest to them. ”
― Maurice Sendak
“There should be a place where only the things you want to happen, happen”
― Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are
“F**k them is what I say. I hate those ebooks. They can not be the future. They may well be. I will be dead. I won’t give a s**t.”
― Maurice Sendak
“Let the wild rumpus start!”
― Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are
“Art has always been my salvation. And my gods are Herman Melville, Emily Dickinson, Mozart. I believe in them with all my heart. And when Mozart is playing in my room, I am in conjunction with something I can’t explain — I don’t need to. I know that if there’s a purpose for life, it was for me to hear Mozart. Or if I walk in the woods and I see an animal, the purpose of my life was to see that animal. I can recollect it, I can notice it. I’m here to take note of. And that is beyond my ego, beyond anything that belongs to me, an observer, an observer.”
― Maurice Sendak
“A book is really like a lover. It arranges itself in your life in a way that is beautiful.”
― Maurice Sendak
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Sendak
