The night Max wore his wolf suit

‘And made mischief of one kind and another. His mother called him WILD THING!” And Max said “I’LL EAT YOU UP!” so he was sent to bed without eating anything.’

The brilliant artist and author Maurice Sendak died today. His books were a part of my childhood and I read them to my children.

Growing up in New York, the son of Polish Jews, he said,

“My childhood was about thinking about the kids over there (in Europe). My burden is living for those who didn’t.”

When director Spike Jonez made the movie version of “Where the Wild Things Are,” Sendak urged the director to remember his view that childhood isn’t all sweetness and light. And he was happy with the result.

“In plain terms, a child is a complicated creature who can drive you crazy” Sendak said in 2009. “There’s a cruelty to childhood, there’s an anger. And I did not want to reduce Max to the trite image of the good little boy that you find in too many books.”

“Kids don’t know about best sellers,” he said. “They go for what they enjoy. They aren’t star chasers and they don’t suck up. It’s why I like them.”

Vale Maurice Sendak, thank you for sharing your gift.