Maurice Sendak

Last night as I watched the documentary about Maurice Sendak on HBO I realized that children's authors are some of the the most complicated people. It was fascinating to watch and hear him talk about his life and influences. Of the many things that impressed me I loved how he thought about children. That we try to hide so much from them but in the end they know more than we think. I have always thought this. I try never to talk down to a child. Most children are more perceptive than we imagine, so when we talk down to them we are inhibiting their growth. I find most children to have better insights to the human condition than so many adults. Which is why we must always prevail on them to be kind and empathic to the world around them.

Maurice Sendak is brillant artist and author. I couldn't believe he is over 80 years old. His most iconic book~Where the Wild Things Are~is now a movie. Just last night I was talking to a friend who is so excited to see the movie because the book meant so much to him.

But this isn't the only book he wrote so I thought I would mention my two favorite books. They are known but not widely and they bring back nice memories for me.

A Sign On Rosie's Door was always one of my favorite books because she had a similar name to me. I also remember the musical which is probably why I liked it so much. I liked Rosie because she was quirky and fun.

The other book or I should say books, was the Nutshell Library. The first reason I liked this set of books was because they came in a tiny box, I have always liked cute little things~something I share with my sister. My favorite little book in this collection is Chicken Soup with Rice :A Book of Months.

This little book consists of poems for each month. When I was little I needed to take speech classes because I had a bit of a lisp. The speech teacher made me recite these poem's because they had lots of "s's" in them. For example:

Chicken Soup With Rice--January by Maurice Sendak

In January it's so nice,

While slipping on the sliding ice,

To sipping hot chicken soup with rice,

Sipping once, sipping twice,

Sipping chicken soup with rice

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So while everyone might just remember his more famous books these are what I think of when I think of Maurice Sendak. This is my childhood.