Did You Know...Maurice Sendak

Well, this is it, the last post of 2013. I can't believe that New Year's Day is the day after tomorrow. With that in mind, I've decided to change things up in the coming year. I'll be cutting back on my Between the Lines character interviews and will be bringing back the popular Did You Know? series. For those of you not familiar with Did You Know?, I feature little-known facts about a different children's book author each week.

Before we continue I wanted to wish you all a very Happy New Year, may all your dreams come true in 2014! Thank you all for the love and support you have given me this past year. I really appreciate it!

This week, we'll be discovering some fun facts about illustrator/author Maurice Sendak. Thanks to Wikipedia for the facts! If you have a fun fact about Maurice Sendak that I did not list here, please share it by leaving it in the comments.

Did you know...

• Many of his extended family members died in the Holocaust?
• When he was 12 he decided to become an illustrator after watching the movie Fantasia?
• Older brother Jack Sendak was a children's book author,, too? Maurice illustrated two of them.
• In addition to illustrating his own books such as Where the Wild Things Are, In the Night Kitchen, and Chicken Soup With Rice, he illustrated many books by other authors, including Else Holmelund Minarik's popular Little Bear series?
• One of his first jobs was creating window displays for F.A.O. Schwarz in Manhattan?
• His first job as an illustrator was illustrating a textbook? The name of the book was Atomics for the Millions by Dr. Maxwell Leigh Eidinoff in 1947.
• His book In the Night Kitchen is one of the most frequently banned/censored books? The book features illustrations of a boy running naked through his dreams.
• Sendak was on the original board of advisors for the Children's Television Workshop when the concept of Sesame Street was developed?
• In addition to illustrating and writing books, Sendak designed sets for a number of ballets and operas? He also consulted and designed numerous movies, television shows and plays for both children ad adults.
• Sendak was born in 1928 in Brooklyn, New York and died in 2012 in Danbury, Connecticut? 

Now, here's a little interview with Maurice Sendak about his views on childhood among other things:

 

My Favorite Books: Where the Wild Things Are

Unless you haven't watched the news or picked up a paper or been online this week, you know that we lost a groundbreaking children's writer/illustrator. I grew up not too far from where Maurice Sendak lived. The girl who was his caretaker in the last years of his life grew up two houses down the street from me.

Because of that and the fact that I loved Where the Wild Things Are as a wee lad (and as a large lad for that matter), I think it's only fitting that I feature this classic book in this week's column. A while back, I wrote about  my brush with Mr. Sendak. His living so close made being a children's book writer not just some nebulous concept, but something real.

Why this is one of my favorite books.

Aside from the fact that Maurice Sendak lived in the same town that I grew up in, the book has a special meaning for me. It's the first book that I remember being read to me. It was published the year I was born, so it was still new

I identified with the main character, Max. He was a wild thing, as was I. I liked to run around. I also liked the idea of going to another world, which is probably the one theme that really resonates with me. Besides that, the wild things were cool.

What I didn't know when I first read it.

I didn't know much of anything when this book was first read to me. That's probably why it's stuck with me, because it's just about the first book I remember. I didn't know that I would one day write a children's book of my own. 

I also didn't know how long and winding a journey I would be taking in becoming an author, albeit a part time one. Where the Wild Things Are was the first step that I took on that journey. Thanks Mr. Sendak.

A Writer's Story--The Early Years, Part 2

Hello again. Last week, I shared a little bit about an experience that influenced me as a writer, and alluded that there was a second experience that inspired me to be a writer as well. Perhaps it was less an experience, and more just a general knowledge.

When I was growing up, one of my favorite books was "Where the Wild Things Are" by Maurice Sendak. I really loved it. So, when I was 10 or 11, I was quite surprised and iintrigued to learn that Mr. Sendak actually lived only a ten minute bike ride away from my house.

Now, naturally I was tempted to pedal my bike up to his house and up his driveway, knock on his door, and introduce myself. I pedaled past there on my own several times. His driveway wasn't that long, and I could see his front door from the road, but I never got up the courage to do it.

An older boy who lived two doors up the street from me worked for Mr. Sendak as a handyman. I thought about asking him to get me in to see him, but I never got up the nerve.

Now in the summer, a couple of my friends and I used to ride our bikes a couple miles to a little market over the New York border (I would never let my children do this, but sadly it's a different world today) to buy baseball cards, candy bars, and soda. This would have been in the mid-70's.

We could go one of two routes. The longer route went right past Mr. Sendak's house. The shorter route followed a horse trail for part of the way, bypassing the stretch of road where he lived. I usually lobbied to go the long route in the hopes of catching a glimpse of the famous writer/illustrator. 

Of course, I never saw him--until one day. We rode our bikes past his house. Nothing. Down the hill and around the bend into New York state...and there he was. He was walking up the road with his dogs, coming home from a walk.

"Hi," I said as I rode by.

"Hello," he said. And that was it.

Not much, but for me, it was everything.

A couple years later, I remember telling my mother that I wanted to write children's books. I remember saying something like, "Maybe I should ask Maurice Sendak for some advice."

My mother, probably with visions of her 13 year old son accosting the poor man on one of his walks, stammered out something about him probably not wanting to be bothered by a teenager asking advice.

That kind of put me off, so I never did try to ask him. It was probably for the best, because I was thinking about stopping him on the street (I'd seen him a couple other times after that encounter). That would not have been cool.

Strangely, the idea of writing to him never occurred to me. Maurice Sendak was too real to me. He was right there, less than a half mile away. You didn't write to people who were so close. But that's also what made the idea that I could be a children's writer so real, too. Maurice Sendak wrote books for children, but he was real to me. I'd seen him walking his dogs on the street.

That made the belief that I could live my dream all the more real to me, too.