To Daddie, who sings me the Queen of the Nights arias from The Magic Flute . Maurice Sendak would approveJBP
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Text copyright 2013 by Janet B. Pascal. Illustrations copyright 2013 by Stephen Marchesi. Cover illustration copyright 2013 by Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. Published by Penguin Workshop, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, New York. PENGUIN and PENGUIN WORKSHOP are trademarks of Penguin Books Ltd. WHO HQ & Design is a registered trademark of Penguin Random House LLC. Printed in the USA.
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2013002555
Ebook ISBN 9781101610336
Version_2
Contents
Who Was
Maurice Sendak?
In 1963, a childrens book called Where the Wild Things Are was published. It was very different from earlier picture books. Some adults worried that it would frighten children. The Wild Things are monsters with sharp teeth who threaten to eat Max, the hero of the story. Other adults believed the book offered a bad message. Most childrens books in the sixties tried to teach children to be good. In this book Max yells at his mother and is sent to his room. But instead of being taught a lesson, he goes off on a splendid adventure and becomes the king of the Wild Things. Not only does he never say hes sorry, he isnt sorry.
Today Where the Wild Things Are is a classic. Its author, Maurice Sendak, won all the highest honors for writing childrens books. For three years, American president Barack Obama chose Where the Wild Things Are as the book to be read aloud to children at the White House Easter Egg Roll. I love this book, he told the kids. When the president growled along with the Wild Things, the Obamas dog, Bo, started to howl along, too.
Maurice Sendak knew that it wouldnt hurt children to read about his scary Wild Things. Even as a small child, he knew that the world was full of monsters. The only way to deal with them was to do what Max didstare them in the eyes and show them who was boss. It didnt help to pretend monsters werent there. Grown-ups always say they protect their children, he explained to Bernard Holland of the New York Times , but theyre really protecting themselves. Besides, you cant protect children. They know everything.
Chapter 1
Looking Out Windows
Maurice Sendak was born on June 10, 1928, into two worlds at once. He lived with his family in Brooklyn, New York. There he ran wild with the gang of children on his block. He went to see movies like The Wizard of Oz and Walt Disneys Pinocchio . And he read all the comic books he could get his hands on. On special occasions, he crossed the river from Brooklyn into Manhattan, with its skyscrapers, bright lights, and flashing signs.
But just as real to him was the world that his parents, Philip and Sadie, came from. They were both born in Poland, in little Jewish villages called shtetls. His father loved to tell stories from the old country. There were scary legends about demons, graveyards, and children who got lost in the forest and died. Sometimes his father took stories from the Bible and changed them to make them more exciting. Maurice got in trouble when he retold these stories at school.
SHTETLS
SHTETL IS YIDDISH FOR LITTLE TOWN. THE SHTETLS OF EASTERN EUROPE WERE CLOSE-KNIT JEWISH VILLAGES. EVEN IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, THE PEOPLE STILL LIVED MUCH THE WAY THEIR ANCESTORS HAD. THEY KEPT FARM ANIMALS FOR FOOD, SO GOATS, DUCKS, AND CHICKENS RAN AROUND ON THE DUSTY ROADS. MOST PEOPLE WORKED AS TRADESMEN OR CRAFTSMENSHOPKEEPERS, COBBLERS, TAILORS. THE MOST IMPORTANT PEOPLE IN THE VILLAGE WERE WISE OLD MEN WHO SPENT THEIR LIVES IN THE JEWISH TEMPLE STUDYING SACRED WORKS. MAURICEs MOTHERs FATHER HAD BEEN ONE OF THESE SCHOLARS. AS A CHILD, MAURICE THOUGHT HIS GRANDFATHERs PICTURE LOOKED EXACTLY LIKE GOD.
Maurices sister, Natalie, was nine when he was born. She had to take care of baby Maurice, or Murray, as he was called. She had to schlep me everywhere and she hated it, Maurice remembered. Sometimes she would fly into frightening rages. His brother, Jack, was five years older than him and was his closest friend. The two of them spent a lot of time together in their room, drawing and making models.
Until he was about six, Maurice was sick a lot. Several times he almost died. Once his grandmother tried to save him by following an old Jewish tradition. She dressed him up all in white so the Angel of Death would think he was already an angel, and leave him alone.
