'Where Wild Things Are' author Maurice Sendak dies

[Totenkindly]

http://news.yahoo.com/where-wild-things-author-maurice-sendak-dies-124719170.html

NEW YORK (AP) — Maurice Sendak, the children's book author and illustrator who saw the sometimes-dark side of childhood in books like "Where the Wild Things Are" and "In the Night Kitchen," died early Tuesday. He was 83 and lived in Ridgefield, Conn.

Longtime friend and live-in caretaker Lynn Caponera said she was with Sendak when he died at about 2:45 a.m. Tuesday at Danbury Hospital. She said Sendak suffered a stroke Friday night and never regained consciousness.

"Where the Wild Things Are" earned Sendak a prestigious Caldecott Medal for the best children's book of 1964 and became a hit movie in 2009. President Bill Clinton awarded Sendak a National Medal of the Arts in 1996 for his vast portfolio of work.

Sendak didn't limit his career to a safe and successful formula of conventional children's books, though it was the pictures he did for wholesome works such as Ruth Krauss' "A Hole Is To Dig" and Else Holmelund Minarik's "Little Bear" that launched his career.

"Where the Wild Things Are," about a boy named Max who goes on a journey — sometimes a rampage — through his own imagination after he is sent to bed without supper, was quite controversial when it was published, and his quirky and borderline scary illustrations for E.T.A. Hoffmann's "Nutcracker" did not have the sugar coating featured in other versions....

WtWTA came out a few years before I was born and thus was a book I vividly recalled from my childhood -- both unsettling at the time and yet fascinating, so that I couldn't look away. Even with the overcommercialization of the property in recent years, it still was a book that lingered with me. I always valued books that seemed different than other books, both from the story content as well as the art style. (Another book I've been looking for, by a different artist, is "Drummer Hoff," which had a very unique style.)

Any other books by Sendak besides his main claim to fame that resonated with you?

 

[Redbone]

Really Rosie. I remember catching the bus to the downtown library because they would play it for the Children's Corner. Loved the music on there and even now, Alligators All Around plays in my head from time to time.

I hope he's eternally playing where the Wild Things are now.

 

[ZPowers]

His interview with Stephen Colbert from just a few months ago was really fantastic.

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-co...grim-colberty-tales-with-maurice-sendak-pt--1

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-co...grim-colberty-tales-with-maurice-sendak-pt--2

 

[Randomnity]

wow, I had no idea it was written in 1964! amazing. I loved it as a kid too, decades later.