Childrens lit seminar paper Where the Wild Things Are is a 1963 children's picture book by American writer

and illustrator Maurice Sendak, originally published by Harper & Row. The book has been adapted into other media several times, including an animated short, a 1980 opera, and, in 2009, a live-action feature film adaptation directed by Spike Jonze. According to HarperCollins, the book has sold over 19 million copies worldwide as of 2008.[1] The book tells the story of Max, who one evening plays around his home making "mischief" in a wolf costume. As punishment, his mother sends him to bed without supper. In his room, a mysterious, wild forest and sea grows out of his imagination, and Max sails to the land of the Wild Things. The Wild Things are fearsome-looking monsters, but Max conquers them by "staring into all their yellow eyes without blinking once", and he is made "the king of all wild things", dancing with the monsters in a "wild rumpus". However, he soon finds himself lonely and homesick and returns home to his bedroom where he finds his supper waiting for him still hot. The original concept for the book featured horses instead of monsters. According to Sendak, his publisher suggested the switch when she discovered that Sendak could not draw horses, but thought that he "could at the very least draw 'a thing'!" [2] He replaced the horses with caricatures of his aunts and uncles, whom he had studied critically in his youth as an escape from their weekly visits to his family's Brooklyn home.[3] When working on the opera adaptation of the book with Oliver Knussen, Sendak gave the monsters the names of his relatives: Tzippy, Moishe, Aaron, Emile and Bernard.[4] According to Sendak, at first the book was banned in libraries and received negative reviews. It took about two years for librarians and teachers to realize that children were flocking to the book, checking it out over and over again, and for critics to relax their views. [5] Since then, it has received high critical acclaim. Francis Spufford suggests that the book is "one of the very few picture books to make an entirely deliberate, and beautiful, use of the psychoanalytic story of anger".[6] Mary Pols of Time magazine wrote that "[w]hat makes Sendak's book so compelling is its grounding effect: Max has a tantrum and in a flight of fancy visits his wild side, but he is pulled back by a belief in parental love to a supper 'still hot,' balancing the seesaw of fear and comfort."[7] New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis noted that "there are different ways to read the wild things, through a Freudian or colonialist prism, and probably as many ways to ruin this delicate story of a solitary child liberated by his imagination."[8] In Selma G. Lanes's book The Art of Maurice Sendak, Sendak discusses Where the Wild Things Are along with his other books In the Night Kitchen and Outside Over There as a sort of trilogy centered on children's growth, survival, change and fury.[9][10] He indicated that the three books are "all variations on the same theme: how children master various feelings"[9] The book was awarded the Caldecott Medal in 1964.[11] DISLOCATION AND UNEASE Throughout the Edwardian period and between the wars, childhood continued to be seen as a time of innocence and purity (although Freuds theories were soon to upset this perspective) and the literature of the time reflected this, perhaps providing a sense of hope and purpose during the disruptive war years. But in the period after the Second World War there were huge developments in juvenile fiction. The sense of dislocation and insecurity immediately following the war was

evident in books such as The Borrowers, The Children of Greene Knowe, and Toms Midnight Garden. All of these novels feature children who are displaced or separated from their families and whose inner worlds become crucial in maintaining their sense of self in the absence of home and parents. The childs perspective is skilfully observed and realistic and the reader sympathises with the loneliness of the child, and hopes for a happy resolution, but the tone is thankfully unsentimental. A new picture of childhood emerges which recognises that life is difficult and that children often have to deal with situations not of their own making, which are far from the cosy domestic ideal of the united happy family. (For a fascinating analysis of some of these books and several other significant classics, including Harry Potter, see Narratives of Love and Loss by Margaret and Michael Rustin). MODERN TRENDS The new realism we see emerging after the Second World War evolved further. Today modern childrens writers start from the perspective that children and young adults inhabit a complex and challenging world. Berlie Doherty, Ann Fine, Jacqueline Wilson, and Judy Blume write about events such as bullying, divorce, mental illness, sex and sexuality, drugs, disability, and even death (although this is less common than in Victorian fiction). Roald Dahl probably deserves a special mention as the most popular childrens author of the 1980s and 1990s. Perhaps this is because he seems to be able to get inside the childs mind so successfully, without judgement or condemnation. He revels in the disgusting and scary and his language is often onomatopoeic and amusing. Grown-ups frequently represent the enemy, to be triumphed over by the heroic child. It is a very appealing view for the young, even if sometimes as adults, we are disturbed by the sadistic nature of the parents, aunts, and teachers who inhabit his books. Back in the real world, novels such as Dear Nobody deal with teenage pregnancy, illegitimacy, and relationships between the generations. In such a book and many others of its genre, it is clear that the way we understand and define childhood has changed. No longer is the end of childhood signalled by leaving home, sexual experience within marriage, and financial independence. Boundaries between childhood and adulthood are not so clear cut and life today seems increasingly complicated and dangerous. A recent positive trend in childrens literature has been the growth in writing about disability and chronic disease. This new genre does not patronise the disabled or use them to promote the personal development of the main able bodied character, as previously. Similarly, there have been several books

that include mental health problems. Jacqueline Wilson describes a mother with manic-depressive illness in The Illustrated Mum, and Anne Fines The Stone Menagerie starts with a 12 year old boy reluctantly visiting his batty aunt in a mental hospital, only to discover a bizarre couple living in the grounds who play an important part in his aunts improvement. Many of these difficult topics are dealt with humorously and affectionately, making it easier for the young reader to accept that human beings are complex, contradictory creatures, and neither adults nor children live up to the ideal. If this gritty realism is too much and an escape into fantasy is needed, J.K. Rowling and Philip Pullmans books provide excellent stories as well as tackling complex psychological issues. Adults and children enthuse about these novels, which immediately raises their literary merit from the bottom shelf of stories for children to serious writing for all. CONCLUSION We hope we have shown that literature for children and about children over the past 200 years illustrates that our view of childhood has changed, evolved, and become much more sophisticated. Many factors have contributed to this change, including industrialisation and the growth of capitalism, increased scientific and psychological understanding, and full time education for all young people. Improvements in health and economic circumstances mean the pattern of morbidity and mortality has altered, leading to an increased survival of those with disabilities or chronic diseases. The literature of each generation reflects the dominant ideology and so we can follow the shifting concept of what constitutes childhood through the writing produced for children, as well as the way in which children are portrayed in adult books. In the next article, we will be discussing what doctors, and paediatricians in particular,might gain from reading literature written for the young. We will also be providing a list of recommended books and discussing the merits of using such texts in the training of doctors. ..................... Authors affiliations E Storr, Senior Teaching Fellow, Academic Unit of Primary Care, 20 Hyde Terrace, Leeds LS2 9LN, UK M C J Rudolf, Consultant Community Paediatrician, Belmont House, 3/5 Belmont Grove, Leeds LS2 9DE, UK REFERENCES 1 Kinsell M. Publishing for children (17001780). In: Hunt P, ed. Childrens literature: an illustrated history. Oxford University Press, 1995:2930. 2 Coolidge S. What Katy Did, 1870. 3 Hoffman H. Struwwelpeter. Leipzig: Friedrich Volckmar, 1848. 4 Reynolds K. Childrens literature in the 1890s and the 1990s. Northcote House Publishers Ltd, 1994.

5 Reynolds K. Girls only? Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1990. 6 Reynolds K. Girls only? Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1990:9

Sendaks picture books depict children in humorous ways, while giving voice to their fantasies.

TRANSCRIPT ANNOUNCER: Tonight on NOW WITH BILL MOYERS... Once upon a time, Maurice Sendak wandered into a dark forest. Childhood has never been the same. SENDAK: We're animals. We're violent. We're criminal. And if I've done anything, I've had kids express themselves as they are. ANNOUNCER: His most famous hero dared to be a rebel and pay the price. No supper. SENDAK: People often say, "What happens to Max?" And it's such a coy question that I always say, "Well, he's in therapy forever. He has to wear a straitjacket when he's with his therapist." ANNOUNCER: He's been called the Picasso of children's literature, godfather to generations of readers. How does a man with no kids of his own know so much about the wild things of childhood? SENDAK: You're going to have to try to believe me... ANNOUNCER: Now, one of the world's great storytellers has produced what he thinks may be his most powerful tale ever... and his last. Tonight, a Bill Moyers conversation with Maurice Sendak. MOYERS: Welcome to NOW. We take a break this week from politics and public affairs to enter the strange and wonderful world of Maurice Sendak. Millions of us have already been there, with a passport stamped by a virtuoso of the imagination. No one does children's stories like Maurice Sendak...over a hundred books in all. He's won nearly every major prize for children's literature plus the national medal of arts. And no wonder.

Just look at these titles: IN THE NIGHT KITCHEN; HIGGLETY PIGGLETY POP; OUTSIDE OVER THERE; CHICKEN SOUP WITH RICE; and of course, the most loved and famous of all, WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE. Our own tattered copy is a Moyers family keepsake. We read it to our children when it was first published forty years ago. We've read it to our grandchildren in the last decade and we fully expect that one day they will be reading it to their grandkids, too. But let me share a Sendak secret with you. A seven-year-old hearing this story couldn't have more fun than a 70-year-old reading it. WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE is ageless and timeless. For defying his mother, mischievous Max in his white wolf suit is sent to bed without his supper. But strange things happen in his room and in his fantasies and Max is soon off to where the Wild Things are. They are no match for a kid with courage and when he stands up to them, as he did to his mother, Max is crowned their king and leads his subjects in a wild rumpus that ends only when he sends them off to bed without their supper. But conquest is no cure for a homesick heart and Max sails back to his very own room and, lo and behold, to a waiting hot supper.... MOYERS: My friend Joseph Campbell once told me long before I met you that one of the great moments in literature is this scene in WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE: "And when he came to the place where the wild things are, they roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws till Max said, 'Be still' and tamed them with the magic trick of staring into all their yellow eyes without blinking once. And they were frightened and called him the most wild thing of all and made him king of all wild things." Joseph Campbell went and got that and read it to me. And he said, "That is a great moment because it's only when a man tames his own demons that he becomes the king of himself if not of the world." And he said that was a great moment in literature. SENDAK: That's very moving. I did not know. MOYERS: But, you were just making it up? SENDAK: I was just making it up. MOYERS: A long time ago? SENDAK: A long time ago. I was 32 when I did that book. But if he's right, that's a wonderful and touching idea. MOYERS: But do you believe it's true? Do we all, adults and children, have to come to grips with our own untamed passions and...

SENDAK: Oh, yes. We're animals. We're violent. We're criminal. We're not so far away from the gorillas and the apes, those beautiful creatures. So, of course. And then, we're supposed to be civilized. We're supposed to go to work every day. We're supposed to be nice to our friends and send Christmas cards to our parents. We're supposed to do all these things which trouble us deeply because it's so against what we naturally would want to do. And if I've done anything, I've had kids express themselves as they are, impolitely, lovingly... they don't mean any harm. They just don't know what the right way is. And as it turns out sometimes the so-called "right way" is utterly the wrong way. What a monstrous confusion. MOYERS: Is writing books like this something like guerilla warfare? SENDAK: Yes. That's well said. Because you're really fighting yourself all the way along the line. And I don't know... I never set out to write books for children. I don't have a feeling that I'm gonna save children or my life is devoted. I'm not Hans Christian Anderson. Nobody's gonna make a statue in the park with a lot of scrambling kids climbing up me. I won't have it, okay? So, what is it... and I got a clue. I was watching a channel on television. And they had Christa Ludwig who was a great opera singer back... I saw her in Europe. She's now retiring. And then, she had a surprising interview at the end of the concert where the guy... she said, "It's so good now." And then, he said, "But, why do you like Schubert? You always sing Schubert." And he sort of faintly condemned Schubert. "I mean, he's so simple. He's just a Viennese waltzes." And she smiled. And she said, "Schubert is so big, so delicate, but what he did was pick a form that looked so humble and quiet so that he could crawl into that form and explode emotionally, find every way of expressing every emotion in this miniature form." And I got very excited. And I wondered is it possible that's why I do children's books? I picked a modest form which was very modest back in the '50s and '40s. I mean, children's books were the bottom end of the totem pole. We didn't even get invited to grownup book parties at Harper's. MOYERS: And men didn't do. I mean, it was a woman's world, wasn't it? SENDAK: It was a woman's world. MOYERS: Yeah, men were not supposed to enter the child's...

SENDAK: And you were suspect the minute you were at a party, "What do you do?" "I do books with children." "Ah, I'm sure my wife would like to talk to you." It was always that way. It was always. And then when we succeeded, that's when they dumped the women. Because once there's money, the guys can come down and screw the whole thing up which is what they did. They ruined the whole business. I remember those days. And they were absolutely so beautiful. But, my thought was... that's what I did. I didn't have much confidence in myself... never. And so, I hid inside, like Christa was saying, this modest form called the children's book and expressed myself entirely. I wasn't gonna paint. And I wasn't gonna do ostentatious drawings. I wasn't gonna have gallery pictures. I was gonna hide somewhere where nobody would find me and express myself entirely. I'm like a guerilla warfare in my best books. MOYERS: Why did you write WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE? SENDAK: I don't know. I don't have an answer. Let me tell you of its originit's brief. I had done a series of books and in those days back in the '50s, you couldn't do a picture book unless you'd done a number of books that paid off somewhat or at the very least showed that you had more talent. And you can move onto the next. There's not much money back then. I don't think Madonna would have been interested in writing a book in the '50s, okay? So, it was my turn. I had earned my 10 years apprenticeship of doing any number of books. Now, I could do a book. And my editor's name was Ursula Nordstrom. And she without equivocation was the best. She was this torrential woman, passionate woman, who could spot talent 10 miles away. I had no education. I did not go to art school. My drawing was so crude. I had shines on shoes like in Mutt 'n' Jeff in Walt Disney. And she saw through that monstrous crudity and cultivated me, really made me grow up. And then, it was time to do my own picture book. And I came to her with a title that was "Where the Wild Horses Are." And she just loved that. It was so poetic and evocative. And she gave me a contract based on "Where the Wild Horses Are." And then, it turned out after some very few months to her chagrin and anger, I couldn't draw horses. The whole book would have to be full of horses to make the book make sense. And when I tried a number of things, I remember the acid tones. She said, "Maurice, what can you draw?" Okay. Cause she was investing in a full color picture book. That was an enormous thing back then. And so, I thought well things, things. Could be anything I could draw without negotiating things I can't draw. And then, we were at... someone had died. My brother, sister and I were sitting shiva, the Jewish ceremony. And all we did was laugh hysterically. I remember our relatives used to come from the

old country, those few who got in before the gate closed, all on my mother's side. And how we detested them. The cruelty that children... you know, kids are hard. And these people didn't speak English. And they were unkempt. Their teeth were horrifying. Nose... unraveling out of their hair, unraveling out of their noses. And they'd pick you up and hug you and kiss you, "Aggghh. Oh, we could eat you up." And we know they would eat anything, anything. And so, they're the wild things. And when I remember them, the discussion with my brother and sister, how we laughed about these people who we of course grew up to love very much, I decided to render them as the wild things, my aunts and my uncles and my cousins. And that's who they are. MOYERS: So, the wild things are your extended... SENDAK: Relatives. They're... MOYERS: Jewish relatives. SENDAK: Jewish relatives. MOYERS: With the WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE, it created a big sensation. I mean, librarians would not put it in the... in fact, there's one librarian who said, "This is not a book you leave in the presence of sensitive children to find in the twilight." SENDAK: Yes. There was a torrent of, "Keep this book away from children. This is..." MOYERS: Why? SENDAK: I think probably it was the first American children's bookGod knows I didn't set out to do this, it was my first picture book. But, I was talking about kids I knew and me. A book, an American book, where the child actually daunts his mother and threatens her. No way. No way. And then on top of that, she puts him in a room and denies him food. No way. Mamas never do that kinda thing. Kids never get pissed at their parents. Unheard of. And the worst offense, he comes home. She leaves food for him. And he's not punished. Not punished. MOYERS: When you had Max get mad at his mother knowing... did you know that this was going to enrage people? That they... SENDAK: No. My mother got mad at me all the time. It didn't seem an extraordinary thing at all. I mean, it seemed to me she was always mad. And in Yiddish, she called me the equivalent of "wild thing" and chased me all over the house. We used to hide in the street and hope she forgot before I crept up in the evening. It was

all natural as your father took swipes at you that you dodge. And your mother was rough, rough, rough. MOYERS: Were you ever sent to bed without supper? SENDAK: I often went to bed without supper cause I hated my mother's cooking. So, to go to bed without supper was not a torture to me. If she was gonna hurt me, she'd make me eat. That's true, too. But, it was a really unkempt, unruly small apartment, three children, father who worked so hard, mother who had problems emotionally and mentally. And we didn't know that. Your mommy's supposed to be perfect. She should be there for you, love you, kiss you. Every movie we ever saw, Claudette Colbert hugging her children. We knew what it should be like. And it wasn't. And we had no sympathy at all. MOYERS: What I hear you describing is not a story that you just made up. It's a story you experienced. SENDAK: Yeah. Well, that's what art is. I mean, you don't make up stories. You live your life. And I was not Max. I did not have the courage that Max had. And I didn't have the mother that Max had. Who would give you, love you and you know this little scene which is so trivial. It happens at everybody's house, happens every Tuesday and Thursday. He has a fit. She has a fit. It'll go on till he's about 35, goes into therapy, wonders why he can't get married, okay? Cause people often say, "What happens to Max?" And it's such a coy question that I always say, "Well, he's in therapy forever. He has to wear a straitjacket when he's with his therapist." MOYERS: This is probably apocryphal. But, I have to ask you this. I did hear... You were born in '28? SENDAK: Yeah. MOYERS: I did hear that you were seriously affected by the kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh baby? SENDAK: Oh, yeah. MOYERS: Is that true? SENDAK: Oh, yeah. Oh, it was the... that was me. That was me entirely in the sense of I was... He was kidnapped in '32.

MOYERS: That's right, 1932. SENDAK: On March 2nd, 1932. So, I was 29, 30... well, I was about three and 1/2 years old, something like that. I remember everything. I remember I couldn't read but the radio was always on. I remember Mrs. Lindbergh's tearful voice, where she was allowed to speak on radio to say that the baby had a cold. And would the man or men or women who took him rub camphor on his chest. It was a slight cold. But she didn't want it to get any worse. I remember that vividly, her voice. MOYERS: When you say it was you, was it the child's appropriation of fear? Did you fear being kidnapped? SENDAK: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Fear of dying because I was a very sickly child. My parents were immigrants. They were not decorous. They were not discreet. They always thought I was gonna die. And my mother crying and yelling 'cause I was a very sickly baby. So I heard all this. I knew I was mortal from a very early age, okay? My grandmother, I have toldI don't remembersewed me a suit of white with white stockings and white shoes. And I would sit on the stoop in front of the house with her so that the angel of death would pass over because I was already an angel. I was all in white. So, I would not be taken as long as I dressed in white. MOYERS: You were dressed to fool the fates? SENDAK: Yes. The Lindbergh thing was I'd just come off a very serious illness. And all the news was the Lindbergh baby. I made the queer association that since I was not meant to live long and I'd been told thatand if the Lindbergh baby is kidnapped, it can't die because it's a rich, gentile baby. It has blue eyes and blonde hair. Father is Captain Marvel. And the mother is the princess of the universe. And they live in a house in a place called Hopewell, New Jersey where there are German Shepherds and where there are nannies and where there are police. Who could climb up the wall, climb in the room and take the baby out and nobody know? How defenseless could babies be even among the rich? Now, I could not bear the thought that that baby was dead. My life hung on that baby being recovered. Because if that baby died, I had no chance. I was only a poor kid, okay? I mean, it doesn't make much sense to say it. But, that's the equation. And when the baby was found dead, I think something really fundamental died in me,

some... I don't know what to call it. MOYERS: You say something died in you. But, I'm a journalist, not a therapist, but for two bits, I'll give you my opinion. I mean, what was born then were all these books, all these dark imaginings, all these dreams, all these projections of evil in the world and of kids groping to cope with it. SENDAK: I think that's why kids are drawn to it. Maybe there are lots of children or certainly those who are not drawn to my work because they don't want to see those shadows. But, I'm telling what it was like for me. And I know it was not unique for me. I've known many children, many unhappy and many disturbed children who don't know how to talk about it. And you know, the strangest thing... the fan mail I get from kids are asking me questions which they do not ask their mothers and fathers. Because if they had, why write to me, a perfect stranger? Why does a baby in OUTSIDE OVER THERE... why is she being... MOYERS: You know, in the culture when I was growing up or about the time you were growing up in New York, it was traditional to say if there was a death in the family, if a little girl asked, "Where is mommy?" "Mommy's in heaven." If the pet died, "Where's Midnight?" "In heaven." We put fig leafs over death. SENDAK: Oh, well sure but... MOYERS: I mean, we need fig leafs, don't we? SENDAK: We do. Of course, you can't say that's harmful because it's such an impossible question to deal with. It really is. And many children's books have tried to do it, the dead bird, the dead cat, the dead this, the dead that. I don't know that there's... I'm not saying that I have an answer to that. I wouldn't... I imply it. I certainly don't spell it out. But they have to know it's possible things are bad. But, they are surrounded by people who love them and will protect them but cannot hide the fact that there is something bad. MOYERS: You deal so often in your work with the courage of children. What does it take for a child to have courage? And what do you mean by it? SENDAK: Innocence. MOYERS: Innocence? SENDAK: Enormous innocence to really not know how evil the world can be. How can it be so evil?

MOYERS: Those themes of innocence and evil that so obsess Maurice Sendak never played out more tragically than during the Holocaust. In his latest work, Maurice Sendak has teamed up with his good friend Tony Kushner, who won the Pulitzer Prize for his drama ANGELS IN AMERICA, to create a children's parable about the question that hangs like a black cloud over history: can it happen again?

Segment Two MOYERS: You wouldn't think anything could astonish a man in his 70s who has seen it all. But Maurice Sendak was stunned not too long ago when he listened to the CD of a children's opera written by a Jewish composer in Czechoslovakia just before the Nazis overran his country. Sendak loves musicMozart and Schubert especiallybut he had never heard anything as sweet and haunting as this. He was just as stunned to learn that the opera had been performed 55 times by the children in one of Hitler's concentration camps before most of them were sent to die in the gas chamber, along with the composer. Here was a story whose themethe triumph of good over evil, of the powerless over the mightyis trumped in real life by history. Sendak had to do something with the tremor that ran up his spine. So he took the story to his friend, the playwright Tony Kushner, who had won the Pulitzer Prize for his own dark drama of love and suffering called ANGELS IN AMERICA. And with Kushner writing the libretto and text and Sendak painting the pictures and designing the set, they produced first the opera and then this picture book: BRUNDIBAR. It's a simple story but a powerful antidote against amnesia. The story of BRUNDIBAR begins with a poor family in crisis. The father has died and now the mother has fallen sick. Her two children go to sing in the town square to raise money for the milk she must have to get well. Brundibar, the town bully, chases them away. But three hundred children and several talking animals come to their rescue. The townspeople then shower the two children with cash and they, along with a cop, a cat, dog and sparrow drive Brundibar from the square. The children go home with the milk for their ailing mother....and everyone lives happily ever after. Or do they? MOYERS: And it ends with them saying, "The wicked never win. We have our victory. Yet, tyrants come along. But, you just wait and see. They topple one, two, three. Our friends will make us strong. And thus, we end our song." SENDAK: Turn the page. MOYERS: It's a P.S. from Brundibar. "They believe they've won the fight. They believe I'm gone. Not quite. Nothing ever works out neatly. Bullies don't give up completely. One departs. The next appears. And we shall meet again, my dears. Though I go, I won't go far. I'll be back. Love, Brundibar." What are you saying there? SENDAK: Well, you can't get rid of evil. We can't, and I feel that so intensely. All the

idiots that keep coming into the world and wrecking people's lives. And it is such an abundance of idiocy that you lose courage, okay? That you lose hope. I don't want to lose hope. I get through every day. I'm pretty good. I work. I sleep. I sing. I walk. But, I'm losing hope. MOYERS: There's a powerful illustration here. The children are on the backs of blackbirds. They're flying through the starlit sky. Why blackbirds? SENDAK: I don't know for sure. Because the blackbirds are in this book, they're both pro the kids and against the kids. Just like fate. Sometimes it goes your way. Sometimes... and also a blackbird is from my passion for Schubert songs and his blackbirds and his birds of doom or birds of good. MOYERS: Well, as the eye moves down that page... SENDAK: You see the mother's screaming. MOYERS: Weeping? SENDAK: Yeah. Yeah. MOYERS: Weeping and screaming? SENDAK: Yeah, yeah. MOYERS: I mean, this is Germany under the Nazis? SENDAK: Yes. MOYERS: A new generation won't read the Holocaust into this? SENDAK: I hope they do. MOYERS: Do you? SENDAK: Yeah. Yeah. I hope they do. But also, some people were insulted. Some people were amazed. And some people were baffled that in the last big picture of that book, there's a crucifix on the wall of the children's house. Everybody assumes the hero and heroine are Jewish and the mother is Jewish. They're not. They're not. That was my point. Those kids were in the wrong place at the wrong time. And all children were in the Holocaust. Everybody was in the Holocaust. So, I made sure my hero and heroine were not Jewish children. That was too easy. That was too easy. MOYERS: The story of BRUNDIBAR. Where did this come from?

SENDAK: It came from a young composer named Hans Krasa who wrote this opera for Jewish children in an orphanage in Prague. Before the performance could be put on... it was just for fun... MOYERS: What, it was about 1938, '39? SENDAK: No. Close to '39 or '40 actually. And the Germans invaded. And all the children were taken out and the composer and the librettist, everybody and put into Theresienstadt or Terezin. It was called "The Empress Teresa's Grounds" that she kept in the old days. MOYERS: A concentration camp? SENDAK: Yeah, a concentration camp. There were a lot of intellectuals there, Bauhaus artists. And Hitler made a film about Hitler gives a camp to the Jews. And they look all shiny. And they're drawing. And they're playing volleyball. And people are dancing. And people are having a wonderful time. And everybody fell for it. MOYERS: They staged this opera, these... SENDAK: They staged the opera. It was staged 55 times. MOYERS: BRUNDIBAR? SENDAK: BRUNDIBAR in the camp. It was so popular. So, they kept repeating it and repeating it 55 times. Of course, the children were periodically put on the train and sent to Auschwitz which is... MOYERS: Hitler would film this in order to make... He made propaganda films to show the world that... SENDAK: Just this one film. MOYERS: Camp was really a good place to be. SENDAK: A good place. The kids were given clothes to wear, were given food to eat. They planted trees. As soon as it all was over, the trees went. The clothes went. The food went. And it worked. MOYERS: And all these children who performed and the composer of the opera were taken to Auschwitz and murdered? SENDAK: And exterminated, yes. Yes. I know when we were doing the opera in... me

and Tony Kushner did the opera in Chicago, a number of people joined us. And one became a fast friend because she had played in the original performance in Terezin. She had played the role of the cat. And she was there. She was my age. And I was sitting with her. We were both crying our hearts out. And there we see a 10-year-old girl standing on stage dressed as a cat like collision and time smashing into each other. And she said she was one of 11 girls who got out. And they're all in touch with each other. And she described the circumstances of the camp and what the production was like. MOYERS: You... SENDAK: I'm sorry. She confirmed that she knew that any one of them on the stage or two or three or whatever would die. And yet, they sang every night that the performance was on. That's courage. MOYERS: That's courage. SENDAK: That's courage. MOYERS: Are you obsessed with death? SENDAK: A little bit. A little bit. Yeah, it's such a curious thing. MOYERS: How so? SENDAK: It's a whole adventure. MOYERS: We have no firsthand reports, do we? SENDAK: No, we don't. I wouldn't believe them even if they did. They all talk about lights in the distance and people flying on the ceiling. No. But, it is an adventure. You know who said that? Peter Pan of all people. I don't like him. MOYERS: Why? SENDAK: No, it's not him I don't like. It's Barrie I don't like. The sentimentalizing of children, the cutesifying of the children. If you look into the heart of Peter Pan, it is a boy obsessed with death, afraid to live. And you strip away all the silly music and the silly nonsense and the crocodile and the hook and all those things, it's a very strange, very strange story. But, Barrie was a very strange man. MOYERS: If I may ask you to tell me about your childhood friend, Lloyd.

SENDAK: Ooh, why? MOYERS: Because I think it fits with the Lindbergh story and the story of your... maybe I'm wrong. If you don't... SENDAK: No, no, no. Of course, it is part of it. I was maybe just preschool, six or seven... I don't remember. Anyway, I was playing with my friend, Lloyd in these tall, Brooklyn apartment houses and long alley ways in between the apartment houses where the kids played. The safest place to play. And laundry hanging from both buildings. And me and Lloyd are playing ball. It was like the size... I remember it seemed like the size of a basketball and just... both of us throwing it high and higher and higher to see if we could reach for it. And I threw it high. And he reached for it. But, he didn't get it. And it bounced. And it rolled into the street. And he did just what we were told never to do which is to run from the alley ways straight into the streets cause nobody sees us coming, okay? And the next thing I rememberI don't remember the carbut I remember Lloyd like flat out in the air. It could be a distorted memory. But, I see the arms and the head, he's flying. And then, I knew what happened. And he was dead. He was killed on impact. MOYERS: This is a true story. SENDAK: It's a true story. MOYERS: So many children fly in your books. Ida. SENDAK: Oh, yeah. MOYERS: The kids on the blackbirds. Mickey. SENDAK: Oh, yeah. Yeah. In I WANT TO PAINT MY BATHROOM BLUE, the hero flies all through the book. In the Randall Jarell book, he flies all through the book. Yeah. You're better than my therapist. MOYERS: And cheaper too. SENDAK: This is true. You're a lot nicer. MOYERS: Is that why there are two endings... but do you feel responsible for Lloyd's death? Do you feel responsible for the kids at Auschwitz? Do you feel responsible for

every... SENDAK: I don't feel responsible for the kids of Auschwitz although my parents tried to make me feel... MOYERS: Why? SENDAK: If I was staying out late and dinner was on the table and I'd been called three times, I was playing stoop ball or something outside in the street, my mother's voice would tell me that I'd better go up now. And I'd go up. And she'd say, "Your cousin, Leo, you know they're your age. They don't play ball. They're dead. They're in a concentration camp. You have the privilege of being here. And you don't come up and eat. They have no food." I was made to feel guilty all the time. Because I had the great, good luck and it was only luck that my father came here. I mean really just dumb luck. MOYERS: That you escaped the Holocaust? SENDAK: Yes. My father came here and my mother came here. You know, they were poor, looking for jobs, save money and bring the people over, blah. There was no hint of the Holocaust when they came over except lots of regular, normal anti-Semitism which they were used to. Yeah. So, I hated 'em. I hated those dead kids. Cause they were thrown in front of me all the time. MOYERS: And you thought of... SENDAK: It was so cruel of my parents. It constantly made me feel that I was shamelessly enjoying myself when they were being cooked in an oven. MOYERS: How do you calm your own demons? How do you find a separate peace in a world that's so full of scary things? SENDAK: I don't know. I read. Like coming here today, I was anxious about this. Would I be all right? And I have a little tiny Emily Dickinson so big that I carry in my pocket everywhere. And you just read three poems of Emily. She is so brave. She is so strong. She is such a sexy, passionate, little woman. I feel better. Art has always been my salvation. And my gods are Herman Melville, Emily Dickinson, Mozart. I believe in them with all my heart. And when Mozart is playing in my room, I am in conjunction with something I can't explain. I don't need to. I know that if there's a purpose for life, it was for me to hear Mozart. Or if I walk in the woods and I see an animal, the purpose of my life was to see that animal.

I can recollect it, I can notice it. I'm here to take note of. And that is beyond my ego, beyond anything that belongs to me, an observer, an observer. MOYERS: Tony Kushner, your friend and collaborator, says you have a mind darkened by both fatalism and faith. SENDAK: Faith? MOYERS: Faith. SENDAK: Well, okay. MOYERS: You agree with him? He knows you. SENDAK: Yeah, he knows me almost too well. Fatalism, yes. Yes. Having lived through the wars in Europe and having lost so many people in my family when I was a child. I didn't even know them. Faith? Total faith in art. Total faith in art. MOYERS: In art? SENDAK: Herman Melville is a god. MOYERS: Because? SENDAK: Because I cherish what he did. He was a genius. MOYERS: What did he do? SENDAK: Wrote MOBY DICK. Wrote PIERRE. Wrote THE CONFIDENCE MAN, wrote BILLY BUDD. And when I step into the... MOYERS: Billy Budd, innocent, faith in the power of innocence. SENDAK: Oh, yes. Look at him. MOYERS: Billy Budd, the eternal child. SENDAK: Scares the bejesus out of people and makes them hate him. Because he's so good. Claggart has him killed in that book. Claggart has his eye on that boy. He will not tolerant such goodness, such blondeness, such blue eye. Goodness is scary. It's like you want to knock it. You want to hit it. Are we a country of beating down things? We love seeing people go down. We just love it and the NEW YORK TIMES is full, every page of people going down.

When it isn't with kids falling off the roof or being shoved in the oven, it's scandals about who's failing, whose movie is making less money, whose book has bit the dust, which artist you don't see at any of the good parties in New York anymore? Am I exaggerating? I feel totally disconnected now. Now, let's say it might be age. I'm getting old. And I'm disappointed in everything just the way old people traditionally, boringly are. That bothers me because is it too traditional? Am I not fighting hard enough? I don't feel the fight. I don't feel it. MOYERS: Isn't this a time for a certain kind of ripeness in your life? I mean, after all, you will never die, Maurice Sendak. I'm serious about that. You know, most of us will live only as long as our grandchildren remember us. But, you will never die. SENDAK: I have news for you. I'm gonna croak. I am gonna croak. MOYERS: But, not these books. SENDAK: Not those books, but I'll be dead. I'll be dead. And I'm not saying this facetiously or I hope not foolishly because the legacy is lovely. I don't take it for granted. I'm not jaded. I never have been jaded. I've always been surprised at my success. I've always enjoyed it. Some books I've done, I really love. Some books I really hate. Some books I'm totally indifferent to. But the fact that people always say to me, "How can you be depressed, Maurice? You know that your books will go on and on and on." And I'm thinking, "Who cares? What am I gonna do now for me before it's over?" MOYERS: But when you and I were walking down the corridor a few moments ago, three little boys, charming little boys, born in the last 12 years in awe of you, they read you. You feed them. Their children will feed from your imagination. SENDAK: And very, very gratifying. But, I'm being very honest with you. MOYERS: I know you are. SENDAK: My big concern is me and what do I do now until the time of my death. That is valid. That is useful. That is beautiful. That is creative. And also, I want to be free again. I want to be free like when I was a kid, working with my brother and making toy airplanes and a whole model of the World's Fair in 1939 out of wax. Where we just had fun. What I mean by this is I've had my career. I've had my success. God willing, it should have happened to Herman Melville who deserved it a great deal more, you know? Imagine him being on Bill Moyers' show. Nothing good happened to Herman Melville. I want to see me to the end working, living for myself. Ripeness is all. Now, interpreting

what ripeness is our own individual problem. MOYERS: That quote of Shakespeare, do you remember the whole quote? SENDAK: "Men must endure their going hence as... even as they're coming hither. Ripeness is all." So, what is the point of it all? Not leaving legacies. But being ripe. Being ripe. MOYERS: Being ripe? Explore that with me. You don't feel ripe? SENDAK: I am getting riper. I mean, life has only gotten better personally for me as I've gotten older. I mean, being young was such a gross waste of time. I was just such a miserable, miserable person. And so when people say, "What age would you like to go back to?" I say, "Well, maybe 69." MOYERS: Oh, good. That's where I am. SENDAK: Okay. Okay. MOYERS: Thank you. SENDAK: I didn't even know that. Venturing back further, learning is so slow. Accomplishment is so slow. Experiencing and evaluating your experience is so slow. And I am feeling only nowI daren't say happy, I don't know what that isat ease. MOYERS: Let's close with this. How does it end: "and they lived happily ever after" or "the night descends"? SENDAK: I became so ripe, people could hardly keep their teeth away from me. I don't know. Let me just say this. When I said the ripeness was a letter that John Keats wrote to his brother who emigrated to America describing what it was like to have a peach or piece of a peach in his mouth. And it's one of the sexiest things you will ever read of how slow you should take the peach. Don't rush it. Let it go through your palette. Let it lie on your tongue. Let it melt a little bit. Let it run from the corners. It's like describing the most incredible sex orgy. And then, you bite. But, it must be so ripe. It must be so delicious. In other words, you must not waste a second of this deliciousness which for him was life and being a great poet. That you savor every, everything that happened. I want to get ripe. MOYERS: Maurice Sendak, thank you very much for joining us on NOW.

SENDAK: Thank you. It was a pleasure. It really was a pleasure. MOYERS: Well, it was for me, too. Public Affairs Television. All rights reserved.

Professionals do not always agree on how to evaluate children's literature. After all, who's to say that there is one definitive set of standards regarding what makes or doesn't make a good book? Sometimes beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder. Add to this, the fact that there can be different criteria for different genres and it can be hard to evaluate a piece of children's literature objectively. So what is it exactly that makes a book truly stand out?

Creativity
There is no doubt that a classic book is highly creative in either story or illustration-or perhaps both. The most creative books aren't always the ones that tell a new story either. Often, the most creative books find new ways to tell old and familiar stories. Some questions to consider when evaluating a book for creativity are:

Has it been done before? (If it is the retelling of a familiar story-is it done in a new way?) Does it further ignite the imagination of the reader? Does it expand real possibilities or engage the reader? (There is a line between creative and just plain strange.) Is it thorough in its creativity-completing characters, setting, etc?

Subject Matter
Another criterion that is regularly used to evaluate children's literature is how the book deals with difficult or unique subject matter. Generally in picture books, this aspect is evaluated within the context of creativity. However, chapter books, particularly those that deal with harder subject matter, get high marks from evaluators for bringing points home to a younger audience. Excellent (and award winning) examples of such books include:

"Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry" by Mildred D. Taylor, is told through the eyes of a ten year old African American girl living in Mississippi in the 1930's. It has been called the best children's book of all time. "The Giver" by Lois Lowry deals with what it would mean to truly create a utopian society. "Tuck Everlasting" by Natalie Babbitt, poignantly addresses the theory of a fountain of youth. "Walk Two Moons" by Sharon Creech deals with death.

Ads by Google Tinkle Turns 30 - Win 30 Samsung Corby Pop phones Subscribe Tinkle at just Rs 225 Tinkleonline.com/30 Writing Contest - WRITERS Literary Agency For Authors We Find Publishers, Submit Online. www.WlwRitErsAgency.com Best Child Plans - Get him 20 Lakhs-Invest Rs125 a day Compare 24 Child Plans www.bimadeals.com/Childplan

Worthy Prose

Poorly received by critics, Alice in Wonderland now holds its place among the classics. Even if a book is wonderfully creative, and deals with its subject matter in a new and thought provoking way, the story still has to be well written. So what is considered well written? While there is not one set of definitive characteristics that defines something as well written, there does seem to be some agreement among children's literature scholars:

Sing song and simplistic prose does not necessarily make a great children's book. While there are some great books that use simple words, the trend is toward language that is more complex and that paints a picture. Vocabulary in children's literature is particularly important because professionals like to see challenging vocabulary in pieces of literature. The language used is deep and thought provoking as opposed to trite or simplistic. It paints a picture as opposed to simply telling a story.

The reality is that evaluating prose is very subjective. However, if you take the time to compare some titles that are considered classic along with something more modern-you begin to get a sense for what is generally considered "excellent prose."

Illustrations
Some books are simply known for their phenomenal illustrations. After all, in the world of picture books, the illustrations have to be as important, if not more so than the actual words. There tends to be two noticeable trends in evaluating children's literature. One is towards those who use very creative mediums-like Eric Carle or David Wiesner for example. The other trend is towards illustrative work that is simply beautiful such as Maurice Sendak or even Beatrix Potter.

Reader's Response
The critics may love or hate a book but it's the reader's response that can help launch it into classic status. In fact so important is the reader's response to a book that this factor alone can occasionally override any critical comments. A great example of this happening is "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," by Lewis Carrol, which was poorly received when it was first published.

What Makes a Classic?

While there are a variety of established criteria used to evaluate children's books for awards and critical reviews, the final evaluation is in the hands of the people who will read and enjoy the book most: the parent, the teacher or the child. When choosing books to read to your children or students:

Choose books with good vocabulary that will challenge the listener's thinking skills. Choose unique books. Choose books with engaging plots.

Choosing good literature is the key to inspiring a love of reading that will last a lifetime.

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Maurice Sendak's Books Have Helped Redefine Childrens Literature

His famous stories include Where the Wild Things Are which is now a major motion picture. Transcript of radio broadcast: 04 October 2009

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VOICE ONE: Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I'm Faith Lapidus. VOICE TWO: And I'm Mario Ritter. This week on our program, we tell about Maurice Sendak, an award winning writer and illustrator of more than one hundred children's books. His stories "Where the Wild Things Are" and "In the Night Kitchen" have helped redefine children's literature. Sendak has also worked on many theater and opera productions. For over sixty years, Sendak's artistic skill has brought to life richly imaginative worlds filled with children, animals and magical creatures. (MUSIC) VOICE ONE: Maurice Sendak was born in nineteen twenty-eight in the Brooklyn area of New York City. His parents were Jewish immigrants from Poland who met in New York. Maurice was often sick as a child. As a result, he stayed home and read books and drew pictures to entertain himself. Sendak's stories are often dark and intense. For example, "Outside Over There" is about a baby who is kidnapped by goblin creatures while her older sister is not paying attention. The sister must leave the safety of home to rescue the baby from a strange and dream-like world. Sendak has said that the idea for "Outside Over There" came from a famous kidnapping. In nineteen thirty-two, the child of the famous American pilot Charles Lindbergh was kidnapped and later killed. Maurice Sendak was only a small child at the time. But he always remembered his fear as he listened to the radio broadcasts about this tragic event. VOICE TWO: Maurice grew up with continuous reminders about death. When he was sick, his grandmother dressed him in white clothes she thought would help him avoid death. Many of Sendak's family members in Europe were killed by the German Nazis in death camps during World War Two. He remembers his mother screaming and crying each time she learned that another family member had been killed. Sendak's parents would sometimes talk about the dead family members, especially children, who were not lucky enough to survive like Maurice had.

VOICE ONE: These influences help explain an important part of Sendak's books. They often show children overcoming evil forces and other complex situations. Many of his stories are about a child trying to survive while facing difficult emotions such as fear. In his books, Sendak skillfully combines an adult's point of view with a child's point of view. His books are magical for all age groups. (MUSIC) VOICE TWO: One of the first books Sendak worked on as an artist was "A Hole is to Dig: A First Book of First Definitions." To write the book, Ruth Krauss asked very small children how they would define words like "face," "dog" and "party." Published in nineteen fifty-two, this book brought wide public attention to Sendak's art work. A few years later, he drew pictures for the first "Little Bear" books, written by Else Minarik. VOICE ONE: In nineteen sixty-two he published the "Nutshell Library." These are four little books in a box measuring about seven by ten centimeters. The books are "Alligators All Around," "One Was Johnny," "Chicken Soup with Rice" and "Pierre." "Pierre" is a funny story about a little boy who behaves badly. His answer to every question from his parents is "I don't care." Then he is eaten by a hungry lion. But the story has a happy ending. Pierre changes his behavior when he is reunited with his parents. READER ONE: One day his mother said When Pierre climbed out of bed Good morning, darling boy, you are my only joy. Pierre said- I don't care! What would you like to eat? I don't care! Some lovely cream of wheat? I don't care!

Don't sit backwards in your chair I don't care! VOICE TWO: Maurice Sendak's drawings are very expressive. His little boys show their emotions in funny and recognizable ways. His monster creatures are more loveable than they are frightening. And his landscapes are very detailed and beautiful. In nineteen sixty-three Sendak published "Where the Wild Things Are." It tells about the adventures of a rebellious young boy named Max, who wears clothing to make him look like a wolf. One evening, his mother sends him to his room without dinner as punishment for misbehaving. Max enters an imaginary world of large, frightening creatures. These Wild Things make him their ruler. But he becomes lonely and wants to return home. READER TWO: And when he came to the place where the wild things are they roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws til Max said "BE STILL!" and tamed them with the magic trick of staring into all their yellow eyes with out blinking once VOICE ONE: At first, Sendak wanted to make the story about wild horses. But he could not draw horses very well. Instead, he drew the creatures to look like his family members in Brooklyn. Some critics thought the book was too frightening for some children. However, "Where the Wild Things Are" became an extraordinary success. It is still extremely popular with children and their parents. A movie version of "Where the Wild Things Are" comes out October sixteenth. (SOUND) VOICE TWO: When Maurice Sendak began his career, many children's books showed a happy and perfect world. Sendak wrote books that were honest and sometimes very serious. He was revolutionary in widening the subjects considered acceptable for children's books. In nineteen seventy Sendak published "In the Night Kitchen." It tells about a little boy named Mickey who enters the dream world of a night kitchen. He falls into a large container of cake batter being mixed by three fat cooks. Mickey builds an airplane out of uncooked bread and flies around the kitchen. This book was also very successful. However, some critics were upset that Sendak drew the young boy Mickey wearing no clothes.

READER THREE: Where the bakers who bake till the dawn so we can have cake in the morn mixed Mickey in batter, chanting: Milk in the batter! Milk in the batter! Stir it! Scrape it! Make it! Bake it! And they put that batter up to bake a delicious Mickey-cake. But right in the middle of the steaming and the making and the smelling and the baking Mickey poked through and said: I'm not the milk and the milk's not me! I'm Mickey! VOICE ONE: Over the years, Maurice Sendak has also worked on many plays and operas. He helped make "Where the Wild Things Are" into an opera. He also created set designs for "The Nutcracker" ballet by Tchaikovsky and "The Magic Flute" opera by Mozart. In two thousand three, Sendak worked with the playwright Tony Kushner on a picture book called "Brundibar." The book is based on a children's opera by the Jewish Czech composer Hans Krasa. It is about two poor children who must buy milk for their sick mother. They try to raise money from the people in their town by singing on the street. But a mean man named Brundibar chases them away. With the help of a group of children and some talking animals, they raise the money needed to buy milk. VOICE TWO: This opera was first performed in nineteen forty-two at a center for Jewish children without parents in Prague, Czechoslovakia. Then Krasa and the children were sent to a Nazi death camp, along with most of the other Jews of Prague. Krasa directed the children performing the opera fifty-five times at the camp before they were sent to their deaths by the Nazis. Sendak has said that "Brundibar" represented the sadness he felt about losing family members during the Holocaust. He thought that the book might help him move on from always thinking about his family's past. Sendak and Kushner worked together to stage their own version of "Brundibar" as an opera for children. It has been performed in several cities. VOICE ONE: Maurice Sendak has won many awards including the "Living Legend" honor from the American Library of Congress. He has also won every major award for children's literature. The Rosenbach Library in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania has a collection of more than ten thousand drawings by Maurice Sendak. The writer began giving early versions of his books and drawings to the library beginning in the nineteen seventies. In May two thousand seven, the Rosenbach Library opened a travelling exhibit called "There's a Mystery There: Sendak on Sendak." It is now at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco, California. Visitors can see many of Maurice Sendak's

extraordinarily detailed drawings and learn more about the imaginary worlds he has created. The best picture books, such as Maurice Sendak's "Where the Wild Things Are," produce a sense of wonder both for the reader and the young child who listens to the story while "reading" the pictures. In Sendak's book, naughty Max, banished to his bedroom, travels to a land where he rules over friendly monsters. Megan Lambert, author of a "Children and Libraries" article about evaluating picture books, defines a picture book as "a dance between pictures and words, wherein each is an equal partner." To evaluate a picture book, assess key elements in its text and illustrations and decide how well they combine to capture a child's imagination. Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions
Text
1. 1 Examine how the text uses patterns, such as rhyme and repeated phrases, which preschoolers love. For example, in "Where the Wild Things Are," Sendak writes that the wild things "roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws." 2. 2 Ask yourself how important sound and rhythm are because young children enjoy the sound of language. For instance, Sendak describes Max's journey thus: "...he sailed off through night and day and in and out of weeks and almost over a year to where the wild things are." 3. 3 Consider whether the subject is appropriate for a child's cognitive level and experience. Preschoolers can understand concrete objects but may not grasp abstract ideas. Max's transition from waking to dreaming includes familiar objects such as trees, vines and a boat.

Illustrations
4. 1

Evaluate how well the artist employs elements of composition such as variation and unity. Max wears his wolf suit throughout the story. He resembles the wild things, who in turn mimic his posture and walk. 5. 2 Decide whether the artist makes skillful use of visual elements such as line, shape and texture. In Max's dream, familiar shapes become bigger. The wild things are larger versions of himself. 6. 3 Judge how skillfully the artist works in the medium chosen for the book. This might be paint, photography or pen and ink, for example.

Interplay Between Text and Pictures

7. 1 Assess how well illustrations harmonize with text. Sendak's choice of subdued color throughout the story underscores its dreamlike aspects. 2 Notice whether the pictures add details that flesh out the story. Sendak's text states that Max "made mischief of one kind and another," but the pictures show what he did. 3 Analyze the pictures to see whether they add depth and meaning not expressed in the text. For example, the grass and leaves in the wild things' land resemble Max's bedroom carpet and the houseplant by his window. These details suggest that the wild things are inside Max's dream and that their world derives from his, although the text never states that information.

Writing Picture Books for Children Today

What Editors Expect From Authors of Illustrated Books

Jul 4, 2009 Dorothy Patent In the past, children's picture books were often more than 1,000 words long. If that many words were needed to tell the story, fine. But today, even 1,000 words can be problematic in this poetry-like genre.

The Shorter the Better, Editors Say About Picture Book Manuscripts
A few years ago, a writer in the know said, "Editors start to smile when the word count drops below 800." Emily Easton, publisher at Walker Books for Young Readers, said recently that if you want a picture book to sell today, it should have no more than 500 words. How is it possible to construct a great story with so few words? Planning and hard work are the answer.

Learn From Maurice Sendak and Peter H. Reynolds

The great picture book writer and illustrator Maurice Sendak's classic story, Where the Wild Things Are, (Harper Collins) has only 338 words. Is a story that short easy to write? Absolutely not, even for someone like Sendak. In Worlds of Childhood - The Art and Craft of Writing for Children, edited by William Zinssner, Sendak writes that he never spends less than two years writing the text of his picture books, even thought they are all less than 400 words long. And he doesn't even think about the illustrations until the text is just right. Read more at Suite101: Writing Picture Books for Children Today: What Editors Expect From Authors of Illustrated Books http://www.suite101.com/content/writing-picturebooks-for-children-today-a129534#ixzz1BBU6N0VE Sendak isn't the only master of brevity in this field. Peter H. Reynolds's book, The Dot, (Candlewick Press) has just 331 words. Yet it has a strong main character and two interesting secondary characters as well as an effective circular plot in which the end brings readers back to the beginning quite nicely. The main character has a well-defined problem that is solved in a positive way that helps her grow as a person. And, the story itself promotes the importance of creativity in children's lives. What more could a reader ask for in a story?

Character and Plot Are as Important as Ever

Despite the emphasis on brevity, editors still want stories with strong plots and memorable characters. They also prefer exciting stories to quiet ones like Good Night Moon. The very first two-page spread must draw the reader in. The Dot begins, "Art class was over, but Vashti sat glued to her chair. Her paper was empty." Readers know right away this girl is very frustrated and also very stubborn, and wonder why she hasn't even tried to draw. They really want to know what's going on and are sure to turn the page and keep reading. Sendak's classic begins, "The night Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind". He doesn't even finish the sentence so the reader has to turn the page. Readers know by the wolf suit and mischief that Max has a wild streak, which they connect in their minds to the book's title. They suspect Max will somehow get involved with genuine wild things and want to know how, so we read on. Both books continue in this

way, leading the reader in each spread to want to turn the page and find out what happens next.

Read on

Writing for Money and How to Maximise Your Income Careers in Writing Ursula Nordstrom

Of course picture books also have to end well, and these books do. Vashti discovers her creativity and learns the satisfaction of helping someone else, and Max has a great adventure but discovers that home is really the nicest place to be. Writing picture books today may be a challenge, but it's a satisfying one. Just remember to keep it short, to have an interesting main character with a problem to solve, to make the story active and exciting, and to end it in a way that will reward your readers. Read more at Suite101: Writing Picture Books for Children Today: What Editors Expect From Authors of Illustrated Books http://www.suite101.com/content/writing-picturebooks-for-children-today-a129534#ixzz1BBUFiQMv Maurice Sendak gives some insights into his writing style in Worlds of Childhood - The Art and Craft of Writing for Children. With me, everything begins with writing. No pictures at all - you just shut the Polaroid off; you dont want to be seduced by pictures because then you begin to write for pictures. Images come in language, language, language: in phrases, in verbal constructs, in poetry, whatever. Ive never spent less than two years on the text of one of my picture books, even thought each of them is approximately 380 words long. Only when the text is finished - when my editor thinks its finished - do I begin the pictures. Then I put the film in my head. Sendak is perhaps best known for his classic picture book Where the Wild Things Are. Other books include Higglety Pigglety Pop; In the Night Kitchen, and Outside Over There. Images and Text Sendaks name has become synonymous with the now iconic images Where the Wild Things from Where the Wild Things Are. It is easy to forget that the book is Are so successful, not just because of the illustrations, but through the Buy From Art.com melding of a well crafted text along with the illustrations. Those famous illustrations were sparked by the text, and not the other way around. The language came first.

Not all author/illustrators operate this way, but this insight into Sendaks approach is very interesting. It reflects the power of words and language. It also highlights the importance of a perfect match between words and illustrations, so that the two blend seamlessly together. Each is equally important, and each complements the other, in a well constructed picture book. Do your words paint a picture? If you are a writer, the publisher will assign an illustrator. Most times, you will not meet the illustrator, so there is little or no collaboration. All the illustrator has to go on, are your words. You begin to see that each word in a picture book is absolutely crucial in painting that picture, firstly for the illustrator, and secondly for subsequent readers. Remember, Sendak says it can take him 2 years to write the text alone -approx 380 words. A short text needs to be exacting. Every word counts.

Rosemary Wells - Writing a Picture Book

Yvonne Russell January 7th, 2007 Writing for Kids & Teens The Invention of Board Books Rosemary Wells is the author/illustrator of the Max and Ruby books. Wells is credited with writing the very first board books, with these two bunnies as the main characters. She had written stories that were not long enough to be picture books, but just long enough to appeal to very young readers. Her own children were at that age, and gave her the idea of the young child and the older bossy sibling. Her editor came up with the then revolutionary idea of publishing them as sturdy board books. Like Maurice Sendak, Wells says that the words come before the pictures. She abhors the trend to make the words a mere adjunct to the illustrations. The Essence of Writing Picture Books In an interview with Anita Silvey, Editor of Horn Book Magazine, she encapsulates the essence of how she writes picture books. Emotion and character and humor are what makes a childrens book right. And its what makes it original, and its what makes it want to be read again and againChildren love to read about themselves, to read about their older or younger brothers and sisters, to read about their place in the family She reinforces this in World of Childhood - The Art and Craft of Writing for Children. I am a big fan of this book, which contains invaluable insights from six famous childrens authors, including Katherine Paterson and Maurice Sendak.

Wells says The characters in a childrens book must reach into the heart of the reader on page one. Emotional content is the main reason a child and a parent will go back to a book again and again. An Exacting Process Many writers of books for adults, and even those who write for teens, often dismiss picture books, as being easy to write. Rosemary Wells disagrees, saying that writing for very young children is the most difficult discipline I know. The Picture Book as a Literary Form She describes picture books as a short literary form like the sonnet and says The soundness of their structure is therefore crucial - more important than in longer and more leisurely forms of writing. She cautions that like a poem, a picture book must not have a single unneeded syllable in any line one false note ruins a poem. The same is true of picture book stories. Suggestions 1. Compare a picture book version of a story with the shorter board book version e.g. The Rainbow Fish. Do you think the condensed version captures the essence of the picture book? 2. Consider Wells criteria against any picture book for very young children. 'I only have one subject. The question I am obsessed with is How do children survive? Maurice Sendak (Marcus, 2002, pp.170171). According to the writer Francis Spufford, Where the Wild Things Are is one of the very few picture books to make an entirely deliberate, and beautiful, use of the psychoanalytic story of anger (Spufford, 2003, p.60). For me, this book and Maurice Sendaks other works are fascinating studies of intense emotions disappointment, fury, even cannibalistic rage and their transformation through creative activity. Maurice Sendaks works have enormous popular appeal and have been purchased and read by tens of millions of adults to their children over the years. Published in 1963, Where the Wild Things Are is the first and best-known part of what Sendak described as a trilogy. Although just 10 sentences long, it has become acknowledged as a masterpiece of childrens literature, inspiring operas, ballets, songs and film adaptations (the most recent of which is released this month). Barack Obama recently told a White House crowd that Where the Wild Things Are is one of his favourite books. It inspired some to suggest that it is perhaps time to separate [Sendak] from the word childrens and deal with his work as an explorative art, purely and only seemingly simple (Braun, 1970, p.52). Sendaks art addresses our deepest, frequently repressed, often unspeakable concerns about ourselves and our loved ones. Often it speaks to children and to the adults who read to them from a place of anguished inner struggle, struggle that had rarely been directly addressed in childrens literature prior to Sendak.

In straightforward, undisguised fashion, Sendaks work has addressed problems as monumental for children as being in a rage at mother, relating to a depressed or emotionally unavailable mother, or coming to terms with a mother who cannot or will not recognise her childs concerns or state of mind. He manages nonetheless to maintain the optimistic view that all of these troubles can be tamed, even if not fully overcome, through imagination. The ultimate magic of his work resides in his presentations of imagination, dream, fantasy and ultimately art itself as sources of resilience, of the strength to soldier on. Peter Hunt Hoban remains a writer who operates with equal subtlety and intelligence, at and beyond the extreme reaches of childrens literature

International Companion Encyclopedia of Children's Literature

By Peter Hunt, Sheila G. Bannister Ray Blakes pictures, in How Tome Beat tease the reader-viewer by withholding precise information about the 3 games which are central to the story, thus drawing attention to our dependency upon sufficient information to bridge national gaps.

Volume 8, 1980
E-ISSN: 1543-3374 Print ISSN: 0092-8208 DOI: 10.1353/chl.0.0111 A. Joan Bowers The Fantasy World of Russell Hoban Children's Literature - Volume 8, 1980, pp. 80-97 The Johns Hopkins University Press Project MUSE - Children's Literature - The Fantasy World of Russell Hoban Project MUSE Journals Children's Literature Volume 8, 1980 The Fantasy World of Russell Hoban Children's Literature Volume 8, 1980 E-ISSN: 1543-3374 Print ISSN: 0092-8208 DOI: 10.1353/chl.0.0111 The Fantasy World of Russell Hoban A. Joan Bowers Russell Hoban, who is best known for his numerous children's books, including Bedtime for Frances, Henry and the Monstrous Din, Harvey's Hideout, and the novel The Mouse and His Child, has in recent years been writing adult novels as well: The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz, Kleinzeit, and Turtle Diary. Although the "child is father to the mouse," as the mouse child says, the children's and adult books of Hoban, like those of most other authors who write for both audiences, have usually been discussed independently of each

other. It is my contention that Hoban's works represent a unified aesthetic whole and that in both adult and children's books Hoban typically expresses his psychological and metaphysical concerns in fantasies involving animals. His children's books become increasingly fantasy-like as his philosophical concerns become more evident. Similarly, his adult fantasies, together with his essay "Thoughts on Being and Writing," become a kind of "gloss" reflecting upon and illuminating his children's books. If one looks at Hoban's most famous children's books, one realizes that they are essentially didactic. Frances the... Kids who fool around and drive adults crazy. Captain Najork remembers how, in How Tom Beat Captain Najork and His Hired Sportsmen, Tom's fooling-around ways helped him win at some rather odd games. In the end, as the champion, Tom trades in his iron-hatted Aunt Fidget WonkhamStrong for a new aunt, one who likes to sit in trees with a glass of wine: Aunt Bundlejoy Cosysweet.
Tom lives with his fearsome aunt, Miss Fidget Wonkham-Strong. Clad in her iron hat, Aunt Fidget warns Tom that if he doesnt stop fooling around, she will have to send for Captain Najork, who is every inch a terror. Not threatened in the least, Tom keeps on fooling around, with ladders, barrels, mud, and all sorts of other things. So up the river comes Captain Najork in his pedal-boat, with his hired sportsmen in tow. Despite Aunt Fidgets claims, Captain Najork is little more than an athletic dandy, who promptly challenges Tom to womble, muck, and sneedball. Luckily for Tom, these games rely on the sorts of fooling around he usually does. He quickly wins at womble and muck, and decides to place a wager before beginning sneedball. If Tom wins this final round, he gets Captain Najorks pedal-boat. And if Captain Najork wins... he gets Aunt Fidget-Wonkham Strong! (Its obvious that theyre fond of one another.) As you might expect, Toms fooling around leads him once again to victory... but the ending of the story is happy for all. Russell Hobans droll tale will appeal most to older kids and adults, despite its picturebook format. (Hobans syntax can be quite complex, and the more subtle aspects of his humor might be lost on younger readers.) And though Quentin Blakes artwork is not usually to my taste, I found his illustrations well-suited to this particular story. Whether youre the type who fools around or the type who wears an iron hat, How Tom Beat Captain Najork is a surprisingly sophisticated and well-written diversion. Reviewed by Maureen Friel for Halfway Down the Stairs in Octobor 2007.

Eat Your Greasy Bloaters! Or Just Read This Book

Posted by Amy Kuras Do you know Aunt Fidget Wonkham-Strong? Do you know what sneedball is? If so, you're my kind of person. If not, here's some excellent news: Publisher David R Godine has bought the rights to, and reissued, overlooked classic children's books "How

Tom Beat Captain Najork and His Retired Sportsmen" and "A Near Thing for Captain Najork." Aunt Fidget Wonkham-Strong is maiden aunt and guardian to Tom, a boy who likes to fool around. Aunt Fidget, however, disapproved mightily of fooling around and thinks learning off pages of the Nautical Almanac is a much better pastime. When she loses patience with Tom's fooling around, she calls in Captain Najork and his Hired Sportsmen, who come to town on their pedal-boat to teach Tom a lesson. This reissue actually happened last year, but somehow I missed it as a matter of fact I didnt know there was a followup to the first Captian Najork book. My father read "How Tom Beat Captain Najork" to my brother and I constantly when we were children, and when we each had kids he tracked down then-out-of-print copies for his grandchildren. My three-year-old will finally sit still for it, and is beginning to love it as much as I do, probably because of the giggle fits I lapse into whenever I read it. It's a gloriously silly book, full of that sort of surreal British humor that you either find funny or lame. It was written by Russel Hoban, better known for the Frances books, and illustrated by Quentin Blake, who also illustrated many Roald Dahl novels. I'd highly recommend checking it out. Hey, it's better than cabbage-and-potato sog.

Creating A Learning Environment - The Importance of Play

by Marty Layne This article is excerpted from LEARNING AT HOME - A MOTHERS GUIDE TO HOMESCHOOLING. The author, Marty Layne speaks from years of experience and provides honest, common-sense narrative that only true-life adventures of a real, in-thetrenches, homeschooling mother can share. (from Chapter 2) Environment - The New Lexicon Websters Encyclopedic Dictionary of the English Language (Canadian Edition), defines it as 'surroundings, especially the material and spiritual influences which affect the growth, the development and existence of a living being.' Create is defined as 'to bring into being.' When we homeschool, we need to bring into being material and spiritual influences that will support and encourage a child to gain mastery of the skills needed to function in the world. This is a pretty big order! It may look kind of scary, and yet we have been doing this as mothers since our children were born. I want to share with you some of my ideas about how to create a learning environment conducive to homeschooling. Please keep in mind that each family will create their own unique environment; one that fits their needs. At the same time as each family will have a unique learning environment, there are some things that I think are important to include in all homeschooling learning environments. First and foremost for successful homeschooling is that children need to have a place to play and things to play with. Play

is the 'work of childhood!' We have a picture book, How Tom Beat Captain Najork and His Hired Sportsmen by Russell Hoban, that seems to me to capture the essence of homeschooling in quite a delightful way. Tom just ?messes? around and doesnt seem to do any sort of studying. This bothers his aunt who decides to show Tom how foolish this is. She invites Captain Najork to compete against Tom hoping to demonstrate to Tom that he needs to spend time with more formal studies. Tom wins all the contests because he has ?fooled around? with all sorts of things and is better able than the sportsmen to play the games. Children need to play and fool around with things; its an important part of learning. We in our North American culture have formalized learning to such a great extent (classes for babies and toddlers on how to do everything from singing to working a computer), that it may be difficult to accept that the time children spend ?messing around? has any value whatsoever much less an educational value. Yet play, non-adult directed play, is vital to a childs intellectual growth and creative abilities. In order for us as human beings to understand things, we need to have a primary experience of what we are trying to understand. We need something to hang our experience on 'La experiencia es la madre de la ciencia. Experience is the mother of knowledge.' Cervantes. The book Truckers by Terry Pratchett about some nomes (this is how Pratchett spells this word) illustrates this point. Most of the nomes have lived inside a store building for many generations and cannot even conceive that anything outside the store exists; that there is an 'outside.' When a group of nomes come to the store who have lived 'outside,' it takes a long time for the store nomes to believe in the existence of this other kind of life which is another world to them. To then learn that all nomes came from a star and were travelling through space when they landed on the earth is beyond the comprehension of most of the store nomes. As they have only experience life in the store, they cannot even conceive of 'outside' much less other planets or stars. Play gives children primary experience to draw on as they get older. A child learns about numbers and the one to one correspondence of numbers as he plays with Lego blocks, dolls, or other toys. A child who has not had experience manipulating objects and not been allowed time to observe the relationships of objects - i.e., that three objects are three objects no matter how they are arranged cannot understand the concepts of arithmetic. A child who has not experienced moving his body through space will have a hard time understanding gravity and velocity. During play, children also integrate their experiences with the knowledge they have acquired and test out how the things they have heard or learned about actually work. Play provides children with opportunities to try things out. building with Lego, blocks or tinker toys gives children a sense of how gravity works with small objects. Swinging, jumping rope, riding a bicycle, or riding on a merry-goround are some ways to learn about gravity with their whole body. Learning with the body - somatic learning - is something that is basic to understanding. Children need many experiences with natural forces or objects so that they have a framework to later understand the intellectual concepts that describe the natural forces at work on our planet. Play - inside and out of doors, imaginary, mentally or physically active - is vital to a childs developing intellectual powers and creative abilities.

Clarisa Pinkola Estes, in her book Women Who Run With The Wolves discusses the importance of play in creative life. Play allows us to experience things for their own sakes, to see what will happen if this and that are put together or this and that are put here under this. Play leads to new discoveries not only for children but for adults as well. Because my children have never gone to school, they have had lots of time to play. I found it fascinating to see the sorts of things they did as they played. When the oldest two boys, Josh and Noah were young (5 through 8 years old) among the many other things that they did, they loved playing with little cars. They spent hours racing them and kept track of which car was the fastest in which situation - statistics. Robin and Holly at that age played with families of little animals, Lego people, or stuffed animals - sociology. As Robin grew older, he, like his older brothers, played more statistically oriented games. It is only our formal educational system that divides the world into various subject categories. In life, as in play, there are no divisions. One thing leads to another, and children discover facets of the world that do not fall into neat and tidy categories as they play. Children play in all sorts of ways and in all sorts of physical environments. I have seen little girls play in the shoe department of K-Mart, while their mom was shopping for shoes, creating an entire world within the space of a few minutes. Play is as natural and as necessary for children as breathing.

How Picturebooks Work (Children's Literature and Culture) [Hardcover]

Maria Nikolajeva (Author), Carole Scott (Author)

Words about Pictures: The Narrative Art of Children's Picture Books [Paperback]
Perry Nodelman (Author) Pictures, potential to please (colours, lines and textures), but also excites awareness and interest. In The Visual Image, E H Gombrich suggests that the visual image is supreme in its capacity for arousal. Hard to disregard the picture, even though it may be counterproductive for pedagogical purpose, esp training in literacy. Like advertisements, a means of manipulating children into paying attention to books and consequently to the words in them. Sutherland, Monson and Arbuthnot say: Certainly the prevalence of illustration in books for children in the past and in the present reflects an adult decision that pictures will attract and hold childrens interest or will help them to learn about a subject. Alternatively as the last clause suggests we believe that pictures themselves can teach offer clarification...pictures are a visual aid, a means of transmitting information to inexperienced listeners and readers that could not be conveyed by words alone.

Pictures do clarify texts, especially texts designed to require their clarification, and they are indeed inherently interesting enough to attract attention and thus have the potential to offer pleasure; good ones can offer as much pleasure as well chosen words. (But clarification usually means that) pictures can communicate automatically and be understood effortlessly even by very young readers. But verbal narratives demand so much specialized expertise of decoding the signification that many critics posit the idea of an implied reader a figure implied by the text, who possesses the expertise it assumes. A picturebook is text, illustrations, total design; an item of manufacture and a commercial product; a social, cultural, historical document; and, foremost, an experience for a child. As an art form it hinges on the interdependence of pictures and words, on the simultaneous display of two facing pages, and on the drama of the turning of the page. On its own terms its possibilities are limitless. The relationships of pictures and words As we respond to picture books, the words of the text so permeate our experience of the pictures that the two seem to mirror each other. But they do not in fact do so as it becomes obvious as soon as we separate them from each other. Pictures can become an important fact in explaining the focus of words. Sendaks pictures centrally focus on differences in colour. Pictures can change the narrative thrust of words. p. 196 That pictures actually change the meanings of texts in the process of supporting them becomes particularly clear if we perform the reverse experiment of the ones described above and explore the effects on listeners of a story told to them without the accompanying pictures. When I have read the text of Sendaks Where the Wild Things Are to adults who have not previously heard it, without showing them the pictures, many feel it to be a terrifying story, too frightening for young children. Without Sendaks particular wild things to look at, they conjure up wild things about their own nightmares, and those they find scary indeed. When I then tell them the story accompanied by the pictures, they always change their minds. Sendaks monsters are relatively reassuring, adorable rather than terrifying, and Sendaks Max is much more arrogant and assertive than they had imagined him. In fact, it is the pictures and not the words that tell us there is nothing to worry about, that despite our assumptions about the weakness of children and the violence of monsters, this particular child can take care of himself with these

particular monsters. The illustrations in Wild Things communicate information that changes the effect and meaning of the story as a whole... As to words, the reader must suspend understanding each of the individual details until the whole list of such details is complete Since words are the separable parts of meaningful sentences, we can understand language only by understanding parts first, then building up to a whole that might in fact be an accurate combination of all the parts. But we see pictures all at once first and then begin to notice the potential relationships of their various parts. Picture book artists almost always convey information about the ways things look by means of pictures...A good picture book text does not tell us that the girl had brown eyes or that the room was gloomy yet practitioners of literary art use exactly such visual details to establish character, mood, and atmosphere.

Last chapter, The Unguarded Face

Walter J Ongs distinction between oral and literate stories Fairy tales, in fact, are not good fiction; they lack the detailed visual description, the richly textured reality we tend to demand as a quality of good written narrative. Paradoxically, however, the very deficiencies of oral tales as literature make the written texts of fairy tales surprisingly similar to the texts written for picture books; they focus on action, they are sparse in physical detail, and they move from highly detailed moment to highly detailed moment by means of quickly described action. Consequently, the addition of pictures is a logical move; it transforms a successful oral text into a successful written one without actually changing the text itself. Do picture books stifle imagination? In fact, the relationship of words and pictures as it is found in all good picture books may be of particular significance in the education of children into mature human beings. The basic, distinguishing peculiarity of picture-book storytelling is that it tells of the same events by means of two quite different media and therefore in two quite different ways. In doing so, it mirrors the process by which human beings come to know their world, better than does any other imaginative experience. Cognitive psychologists believe that we understand new experiences by using old experiences as a pattern or schema; in determining what we already know about something new to us, we may focus our attention on what is newand so learn more than we did before. This is like what Piaget calls assimilation the use of old learning

in the process of new learning... According to Jeremy Campbell, This means that sameness is mixed in with change... A measure of consistency is introduced into a system which, by its very nature, needs to be partly inconsistent, to surprise us with the unexpected. Iser says Throughout the reading process there is a continual interplay between modified expectations and transformed memories.

In 1973 the book was adapted into an animated short directed by Gene Deitch at Krtk Film, Prague for Weston Woods Studios. Two versions were released: the original 1973 version, with narration by Allen Swift and a musique concrte score composed by Deitch; and an updated version in 1988 with new music and narration by Peter Schickele.[12] In the 1980s Sendak worked with British composer Oliver Knussen on a children's opera based on the book, Where the Wild Things Are.[4] The opera received its first (incomplete) performance in Brussels in 1980; the first complete performance of the final version was given by the Glyndebourne Touring Opera in London in 1984. This was followed by its first U.S. performance in Saint Paul, Minnesota in 1985 and the New York premiere by New York City Opera in 1987. A concert performance was given at The Proms in the Royal Albert Hall, London in 2002.[citation needed] A concert production will be produced by New York City Opera in spring 2011.[13]

The live-action film version Where the Wild Things Are is directed by Spike Jonze. It was released on October 16, 2009.[14] The film stars Max Records as Max and features Catherine Keener as his mother, with Lauren Ambrose, Chris Cooper, Paul Dano, James Gandolfini, Catherine O'Hara, and Forest Whitaker providing the voices of the principal Wild Things. The soundtrack was written and produced by Karen O and Carter Burwell. The screenplay was adapted by Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers. Sendak was one of the producers for the film. The animated series The Simpsons made allusion to Sendak's book in the season 17 episode "The Girl Who Slept Too Little". In the episode, the take on the book was titled "The Land of Wild Beasts". The Old Country As a child of Eastern European Jewish immigrants who came to America just before World War I, Sendak grew up in a household with strong ties to the Old Country. On the morning of his bar mitzvah, news came that his paternal grandfather had perished in the Holocaust. Soon after, his paternal aunts, uncles, and cousins were also murdered. The realization that children his age could die was a great shock to Sendak and became a preoccupation in much of the work he has created. It became clear to the artist that his life's work must "retrieve all those lost Jewish souls and return them to the living." His illustrations for Isaac Bashevis Singer's tales for children, Zlateh the Goat (1966), are infused with portraits of his lost relatives salvaged from photo albums. In Grandpa's House (1985) was written by the artist's father, Phillip Sendak, and published after his death with illustrations by the artist. It is a Yiddish tale within a tale of the father's own shtetl boyhood and immigration to America, and of a boy named David who sets out on a quest and runs into his own "wild things." While Sendak pays tribute to the relatives who perished, he pokes fun at those he grew up with. His best-known creations-those beloved monsters of Where the Wild Things Are-are, as Sendak has explained, none other than his maternal aunts and uncles who visited his childhood home in Brooklyn every Sunday, pinched his cheeks and ate all the food in sight. The only relief for the artist and his siblings "was to examine those relatives critically and make note of every mole, every bloodshot eye, every hair curling out of every nostril, every blackened tooth." Sendak's works of the last three decades are filled with tension between terror and beauty, anger and guilt. In Outside Over There (1980), Sendak's own Grimm-like tale, his heroine Ida reluctantly marches into the woods in search of her baby sister who has been kidnapped by goblins. As the story progresses, Ida is forced to step into her mother's role and care for her young sibling. Sendak sets the story in the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Biedermeier era in Germany,

providing a false sense of security in Ida's world that mirrors the unstable situation of German Jews in the post-Emancipation era. Such subjects make grown-ups cringe even when they are not lavishly illustrated in a children's book. (Grown-up guilt, Sendak believes, probably has something to do with this.) But it's a different story for children. What most interests them, it seems, is how the kids win out in the end. And that's what interests Sendak. In the world of children's publishing, he has been everyone's favorite enfant terrible, always causing a rumpus over this or that. "Solving the problems of homelessness, or any other social problem, isn't the real purpose of this book," he says. The purpose of this book is the purpose of all Sendak books, he says: To examine how children get through, how they get by. "These are difficult times for children. Children have to be brave to survive what the world does to them. And this world is scrungier and rougher and dangerouser than it ever was before. . . . " While the trials of Sendak's "sickly, spindly" childhood were many, there is no question that he was born into the right family--a family of storytellers. "My father told stories that would now be deemed inappropriate for children. My brother wrote weird stories and my sister bound the weird stories into beautiful books which we sold on the streets." It was a family of intense emotions and colorful characters who were never more colorful than every Sunday afternoon when the Sendaks' "hideous, beastly relatives" arrived for dinner. "They would lean over you with their foul breath and squeeze you and pinch you, and their eyes are blood-stained and their teeth are big and yellow. Ahh! It was horrible, horrible," he says. These frightful creatures, of course, went on to become the wild things in Sendak's classic Where the Wild Things Are, the award-winning tale of a pajama-clad boy named Max who travels to a land of huge, hairy monsters and subdues them. ("At first," says Sendak, "the book was to be called 'Where the Wild Horses Are,' but when it became apparent to my editor I could not draw horses, she kindly changed the title to 'Wild Things,' with the idea that I could at the very least draw 'a thing'! So I drew my relatives. They're all dead now, so I can tell people.") But for young Sendak, school was more frightening than any imaginary monster. To him, grammar school, high school, even his brief visit to art school were nightmares of corporal regimentation and intellectual abuse.

Wild Things, among the top 10 best-selling children's books of all time, has changed the way teachers and parents view childhood while offering young readers a whimsical affirmation of what they have known all along. Long before reviewers saw his latest book--a 26-pager with the title page on the back-Sendak's rule-breaking was making grown-ups edgy. "Rules?" snorts Sendak. "I never saw any rules. I never accepted the idea that a children's book was a limited thing, (so) every time I did a book I strained the limitations, and people were annoyed at me."

Picture books have changed throughout the years as they continue to explore pertinent topics relevant to the times. While yesterday's picture books typically centered on talking animals, today's pictures include more serious topics, such as divorce and blended families. However, the purpose remains the same. Besides still being used as a teaching tool and bonding time between parent and child, picture books continue to serve as a young child's first introduction to books. Identification
A picture book is an illustrated book, mainly written for toddlers and preschoolers. Illustrations done in various art mediums, such as watercolors, acrylics, oils, colored pencils, collages and photographs, tell stories with limited or no text. They're written in a vocabulary that children can understand but not necessarily read, dealing with anything from simple stories to serious narratives.

Conventions of children's literature: then and now Critical Essay

Style, Fall, 2001 by Karen Coats Children's books make us who we are, culturally and individually. They teach us things about language's relationship to power--the power of self and the power of others. So to read some of them, on one level, produces a kind of adult critical displeasure at odds with fond childhood memories, a disconnection that cannot simply be dismissed as one's development of a more sophisticated aesthetic sense, but must take into account the differing needs and values of different life stages.

Thus, by working through questions of legitimacy and appropriateness, theorizing affect, locating the subversive beneath or alongside the conventional, scholars of children's literature must engage in a constant process of defining and redefining their field of inquiry because the conventions of children's literature change with the changing conception of children and what they need and want. Speaking schematically if not rigidly historically, the child as smaller version of the adult gave way to the ideally hedonistic child of the Romantics. Then followed the Evangelical child who, though cherished, needed rigid instruction unto repentance. Next, in the late nineteenth and the twentieth century, came the psychologically active child who set busily about repressing and sublimating his or her psychosexual desires through Victorian fantasy, Golden-Age literature, and Maurice Sendak's wonderful fantasyscapes, and who sought peace and a simple, just life through the works of authors like Wanda Gag, the Reys, Mun ro Leaf, Ludwig Bemelmains, and Dr. Seuss. In the 1960s and 1970s, the social realist child had her problem novels and picture books, and today's savvy multicultural child finds images of every kind of self imaginable reproduced in the 5000 children's books published each year. Of course, each of these categories marks general and reductive trends rather than actual particularities of child experience, and authors of each period either supported or opposed these conceptions of their audience to varying degrees. Today, for instance, despite all our postmodern pretensions, there is still a tendency to idealize childhood, to posit it as a stable category whose members are uncomplicated and predictable and sufficiently opaque that we may project our hopes and dreams onto them as a screen. Hence children's literature is often tardy in taking up the latest literary fashions. But by tracing the historical development of conventions of character in children's literature, Maria Nikolajeva charts the changing conception of what children want and need from books, and shows the increasing faith authors have in the ability and need of contemporary children to read critically about complex characters, rather than simply to identify with flat heroes and heroines. Another challenge scholars face is that textual conventions change as the age of the implied reader changes. By comparing literature for young adults to children's literature rather than to that using textual conventions aimed toward adults, Roberta Seelinger Trites shows that the key issue marking adolescent texts is the deployment and ubiquity of institutional power. She points up, especially, the paradoxes of a literature that seeks to empower its readers by encouraging them to grow up and, effectively, to abandon the position they currently occupy. The resistance to becoming "adult"-erated, so powerfully felt in children's books, is systematically obliterated as an option in Young-Adult fiction. Picture books Picture books are most often aimed at young children, and while some may have very basic language especially designed to help children develop their reading skills, most are written with vocabulary a child can understand but not necessarily read. For this reason, picture books tend to have two functions in the lives of children: they are first read to young children by adults, and then children read them themselves once they begin to

learn to read. Some picture books are also written with older children or even adults in mind.

Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak has become a classic. Winner of the 1964 Caldecott Medal as the "Most Distinguished Picture Book of the Year," it was first published by HarperCollins in 1963. When the book was written, the theme of dealing with dark emotions was rare in children's literature, especially in picture book format for young children.

The Story
However, after more the 40 years, what keeps Where the Wild Things Are popular is not the impact of the book on the field of children's literature, it is the impact of the story and the illustrations on young readers. The plot of the book is based on the fantasy (and real) consequences of a little boy's mischief. One night Max dresses up in his wolf suit and does all kinds of things he shouldn't, like chasing the dog with a fork. His mother scolds him and calls him a "WILD THING!" Max is so mad he shouts back, "I'LL EAT YOU UP!" As a result, his mother sends him to his bedroom without any supper. Max's imagination transforms his bedroom into an extraordinary setting, with a forest and an ocean and a little boat that Max sails in until he comes to a land full of "wild things." Although they look and sound very fierce, Max is able to tame them with a single glance. They all realize Max is "..the most wild thing of all" and make him their king. Max and the wild things have a fine time creating a rumpus until Max begins to want to be " where someone loved him best of all." Max's fantasy ends when he smells his dinner. Despite the wild things' protests, Max sails back to his own room where he finds his supper waiting for him.

The Book's Appeal

This is a particularly appealing story because Max is in conflict with both his mother and his own anger. Despite the fact that he is still angry when he is sent to his room, Max does not continue his mischief. Instead, he gives free rein to his angry emotions through his fantasy, and then, comes to a decision that he will no longer let his anger separate him from those whom he loves and who love him. Max is an engaging character. His actions, from chasing the dog to talking back to his mother are realistic. His emotions are also realistic. It's quite common for children to get angry and fantasize about what they could do if they ruled the world and then calm down and consider the consequences. Max is a child with whom most 3-6 year olds readily identify.

To Sum Up
To sum up, Where the Wild Things Are is an excellent book. What makes it such an extraordinary book is the creative imagination of both Maurice Sendak the writer and Maurice Sendak the artist. The text and the artwork complement one another, moving the story along seamlessly. The transformation of Max's bedroom into a forest is a visual delight. Sendak's colored pen and ink illustrations in muted colors are both humorous and sometimes a little scary, reflecting both Max's imagination and his anger. The theme, conflict, and characters are ones with which readers of all ages can identify. I also know from personal experience that it is a book that children enjoy hearing again and again. (Publisher: HarperCollins, ISBN: 0060254920) Maurice Sendak: A Western Canon Jr. BY MARION LONG He's been called "the Picasso of children's books" and "one of the most powerful men in the United States." In an exclusive HomeArts interview, writer and illustrator Maurice Sendak talks about the children's books that he admires and loves. And he confides to us some of the interests, memories, and passions that have worked to make him one of the reigning kings in the history of children's literature. Since 1951 Sendak has produced more than 80 books. His most famous, Where the Wild Things Are, is one of the ten best-selling children's books of all time. He's received every major prize for excellence in literature for children, including the Caldecott Medal and the American Book Award. But more than that, Sendak has created a virtual revolution in children's literature, changing ideas about what kind of content and work is appropriate for children. Having kept alive the child in himself--that adventuresome, hungry, and sensitive child--he knows how to move and bedazzle "other" children. "I don't believe that the kid I was grew up into me," Sendak once said. "He still exists somewhere in the most graphic, physical way. I communicate with him--or try to--all the time." A story that illustrates the power of Sendak's work comes from a report in The Library Journal: A little girl, who had never spoken and had essentially withdrawn from the world around her, spoke her first sentence after a teacher's aide read her Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are. The sentence was:

"Can I have that book?" Fortunately, we can all have his books. We can all experience the magic that Sendak works within the hearts and minds of his readers. We can all enter "The Night Kitchen," huddle for warmth with "Zlateh the Goat" and journey to "Where the Wild Things Are." We invite you to join us on this brief guided tour of the wild, delightful, sometimes frightening, but always wonderful universe of Maurice Sendak.

HomeArts: What person deserves greatest credit for your love of reading? Sendak: My father. He was an incredible storyteller. He told stories to put us to sleep at night, my brother and sister and me. Which was wonderful, although--unwittingly, of course--he did turn me into an insomniac, because some of his stories were so hairraising. And he didn't edit. It's funny, because that's what I'm accused of now: being a storyteller who tells children inappropriate things. And I must have learned it at his knee, because he never thought that any story was inappropriate for kids--if it was a good story. So he was the perfect children's writer, in my opinion, because he told us what we really wanted to hear--all the details--sometimes gruesome, sometimes hilarious, and sometimes bewildering because we didn't understand everything. Or at least I didn't: I was the youngest. My sister was almost ten years older than me, my brother five, and I was very jealous of the fact that they read real books. And so I only wanted to read their books. When we would go to the library on Fridays to take out books for the Sabbath--because on the Sabbath you could only read, you couldn't write--I would never go into the children's part of the library; I was ashamed to do that. HomeArts: What were some of the books that were most important to you as a child? Sendak: To have become a reader was faintly miraculous for me, given how nightmarish reading was made for us in school. I have the most intense memory of what reading meant: You went to assembly and you sat, row by row, class by class. And then a teacher on stage read the story. Reading consisted of listening with your hands folded in your lap. Kids assigned by teachers to be monitors walked up and down to see if your hands indeed were clasped tightly. If your hands were folded during the entire reading, you might get a tiny gold star, which you would paste in your book. So of course all you thought about were your hands.

I dreaded it, but we had to endure. And you see how anti-reading, how anti-life, the situation was. There are very few books from school that I loved. In fact, there's only one--Chicken Little. And I remember it not because Chicken Little is such a great story, but because of the pictures. It was a school reader, and the pictures were simple and they were all yellow. And I loved to turn the page and see all those yellow pictures: little, fat, yellow pictures running all over the pages. The other book that meant an awful lot to me was one of the books that Harold Bloom chose: A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson. That has very happy associations for me because I was an extremely sickly child, which was fairly normal back in the 30's before sulfa drugs and so on. Kids caught everything back then: the whooping cough, scarlet fever, all of that. I got everything and spent a good part of my early years in bed. And A Child's Garden of Verses was read to me by my brother. Some of the poems I memorized. I remember one in particular about the counterpane, with soldiers on the blanket ["The Land of Counterpane"] because that was what my life was like. A great breakthrough for me was the book At the Back of the North Wind, by George MacDonald. I must have been, oh, say, between eleven and thirteen or fourteen when I first read that. And after reading North Wind, I read The Princess and the Goblin, and that was it--the best of all MacDonald's full-length fairy tales. MacDonald's work does more than merely suggest mystery--you walk right into it. Every one of his books is a dream romance, a romance in the best sense of the word, something exciting and thrilling, yet puzzling and wonderful. And you want to believe whatever it is. He's telling you things such as getting lost is often the beginning of finding what you want. I remember always: There's a forest, and you're frightened for a moment, but then if you turn the right way there is a little cottage, with a woman spinning in it. It's as if to say, you'll find it if you want it. His books are full of wonderful images that have become part of my own pack of ideas, if you will. I've taken so much from George MacDonald, I've learned so much and stolen so much from him. As did Lewis Carroll. When he presented Alice's Adventures in Wonderland to MacDonald, who was a great friend of his, Carroll said: "Much of this comes from you." And MacDonald acknowledged that it did, but MacDonald, being MacDonald, said: "Great--that's what we're all here for." In the dark days of my adolescence, an English teacher took a fancy to me and introduced me to William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience. She thought the pictures might turn me into a reader of poetry. They didn't, but they did turn me into a Blake idolator. Those two fierce and blindingly beautiful works became the model by which everything in my creative life is measured. They belong with Mozart and Shakespeare-my teachers and gods and best consolations for everything. My favorite illustrator when I was a young man, just learning, was Randolph Caldecott [The House That Jack Built; Hey Diddle Diddle; The Grand Panjandrum Himself], and

he must be placed in the Canon. I've learned and learned from him and although I've grown up and I've gotten old I still wonder at the freshness and honesty and delicacy of his work, and the fact that his picture books are largely ignored, and that an award is named after him [the Caldecott Medal for children's book illustration], but that most people don't know anything about him and don't read him. He's like Mozart--the way he will take a few lines and embellish those lines in personal ways and musical ways. One of the most gorgeous picture book-makers ever, perhaps the most gorgeous, is Randolph Caldecott. Another writer I'd put in my Canon is Beatrix Potter, who is to me the mini-Jane Austen. Jane Austen is is one of my very favorite writers. I re-read her all the time and I get the same pleasure. She's perfect--and I couldn't tell you why. She just makes me so happy. Beatrix Potter is a miniaturist in the same way that Austen is. Austen once described her work as "that little bit (two inches wide) of ivory,in which I work with so fine a brush as produces little effect after much labor." She wasn't being coy or modest; she had measured her talent, and she knew exactly what she could do. What a perfect two inches of ivory! In the same way, Potter always works within her experience. She showed us something we have all profited from. I mean those of us who have learned the lesson, which is: There is no such thing as a children's book, no such thing as a sweet, little book for kiddies. And unfortunately, ironically, she's been forced into that image with Peter Rabbit and the Flopsy Bunnies, but her books in truth are sturdy and strange. I mean Peter Rabbit is lethal--look what almost happens to him. He gets away not because he's smart, but just by dumb luck. And the book makes it clear that it's just dumb luck that has saved him from being eaten. But your mother is still there to forgive you. It's one of the models for Max in Where the Wild Things Are. The honesty of the child--he's warned against the danger but he can't resist it. And Peter almost dies. I would include all of Potter's books in the Canon. I think the spirit at the center of the trio of Caldecott, Potter, and MacDonald is Grimm's Fairy Tales. To me the Grimm tales were an extension of the stories my father told me; they are very like his stories, in which people got hacked and eaten and brutalized. And the bad people were really tortured to death, and that was such a great satisfaction. The Grimms have remained central to my life and work. Theirs are the greatest tales; they have no equals. I think the story "The Juniper Tree" is a masterpiece. I'm not talking about children's stories, I'm talking about stories, period. And the two-volume set of Grimm's tales called The Juniper Tree (1972) I will say, immodestly, does them justice. [Sendak illustrated the collection.] The 27 tales in that set are faithfully translated, meaning unedited, versions. Nearly all translations of Grimm are censored in some way or other. I could be wrong, but I believe I'm right. It was always presumed that the stories are too violent or passionate or sexual for children, so they had to be cut and touched up. But the Brothers never intended them

for children. When they were collected, it was high society collecting folk tales from the hills. The farms were being abandoned and people were scattering due to the Napoleonic Wars and the Industrial Revolution--and the Brothers were wise enough to know that this would mean the end of oral story-telling. So they rushed off to the old peasants and sat there and took down the stories. The literati in Germany at that time got into the act, and it became fashionable to collect stories and give them to Jacob and Wilhlem Grimm for their collection. When the collection was published, it was a big literary event. And soon, to the Brothers' horror, kids began reading the tales. What they didn't realize was that kids had nothing else worth reading then, just religious tracts showing that if you were bad you were going straight to hell. Suddenly, there were these blood-and-guts stories, where the ugly brother makes it because he's smarter than his handsome brother and where people have their heads chopped off. But if you make a mistake, "Well, sorry, honey," and you put the head back on. So you could fix bad things. And you could marry right, if you were good. And if you were bad, you would get it in the end, baby. Gradually the Brothers simply resigned themselves to the fact that, for some perverse reason, children loved what they themselves considered very strange, obscure, and "grown-up" stories. Some of the stories in The Juniper Tree were translated by the late poet Randall Jarrell and two of his own books are in my Canon--The Animal Family and The Bat-Poet. The Animal Family is all about loneliness, and how do you have a family and how do you pull a family together? It's heartbreakingly great. I'll say this, and I don't care who minds: There is no twentieth-century writer of fairy tales to stand alongside Randall Jarrell. Now, leaving aside the question of whether or not their written text merits inclusion in the Canon, there are three books I must single out for the quality of their illustrations. The first is Babar [The Story of Babar the little elephant by Jean de Brunhoff]. Babar is heaven. And the fact that Babar is supposed to be politically incorrect these days makes me love it even more. Because it doesn't matter. Not to me. Because Babar is the most primal, wonderful, vision of children's heroism. Within one page happy Babar, who lives in Eden, has his mother shot out from under him, and he's got a dead mother--within one page. But, thank God, the jungle is about a block and half away from Paris. And he runs, and the old woman takes him in, and he's got a new mama! Within two pages. Jean de Brunhoff was the first person who to tell us a story about a mother's death in a picture book. That's what the book is about: how you can go on living and become a real person even if you're parentless. The other two picture books I would include in the Canon are The Pirate Twins and Clever Bill by William Nicholson, the English graphic artist. I defy anyone to stop turning the pages of a Nicholson book. They're hilarious, sweet in the best sense, funny, charming. I wish I could remember the exact text where Mary takes care of the Pirate Twins and she loves them. She does this for them and she does that for them and then you go on to the next page, and it says: "But they didn't care." It is such a great book for a child. The Pirate Twins stick out their tongues, and they spill the milk . . . It all ends well,

but not in a tacky way. There is the independence of the child, the independence of the Pirate Twins, who say: Mary loves us and we love Mary, but what the hell, we'll do what we want to, anyway. Since we have to keep this to the category of children's books, we can't talk about all of Isaac Bashevis Singer's works, but we can discuss his childrens stories. I was lucky enough to illustrated the best of his works for children--Zlateh the Goat and Other Stories. I'm very proud of that book, it stands alone, and it's adorned with the settings and people and animals of the Old World that disappeared. Both my parents lost everybody, practically, in the Holocaust. And Isaac meant a great deal to us, because he was a survivor and he was a great artist. And many of the pictures in Zlateh are portraits taken from photograph albums of people I never knew, because they died in concentration camps. But they were people from various parts of our family--uncles and aunts and faraway cousins. I gave some of the characters their faces, so that I could surprise my parents. They were deeply touched because they recognized this one and that one. Those lost people were alive again in the book, they would always be alive in the book, they would always be characters in Isaac Singer stories. Just think of what you can do in books. Books are personal, they are about us. I knew my father's stories were personal; they were about us. The childhood in my father's stories would have been my childhood if my parents hadn't arbitrarily taken a boat and come to America. Because of their whim, we didn't die in a concentration camp. And I've never lost that sense. It was not fate--not, oh thank God, we were saved. No, it was whim that made my father get on a boat--he wasn't forced to--and thus we were born here. I remember when I was designing an opera in Amsterdam about ten years ago, and on my way from my hotel to the opera house, I would pay homage to Vincent Van Gogh at his museum and then to Anne Frank, whose house was nearby. I would go to Anne Frank's house and spend a long time there. I walked every day with my two buddies, Anne and Vincent. And I had the uneasy, chilly feeling that I could get on a plane and go home, but for her there had been no escape. And that kept reminding me of my father and my mother, and the whimsicality of their coming here. I had cousins who died in the Holocaust the year of my bar mitzvah; they had no bar mitzvah, and I knew all the time that it was luck. Like Peter Rabbit, and like all the people I've been interested in. And the only way to protect yourself from the garishness of that is to walk into a George MacDonald mystery. Like a cloak, it protects you from the awfulness of the knowledge that life can be so harsh and arbitrary. From the comments of other parents and various children's bookstore owners, as well as the fact that the rare used copies sell seemingly seconds after they become available, it is incredible that the two Capt. Najork books have been out of print for so long. (I once tried to put my name on a waiting list at a Toronto children's bookstore, and the clerk just laughed at me). The brilliantly innovative language -- try saying "Aunt Fidgit Wonkham-

Strong Najork" and see if your palate isn't pleased -- sloppily perfect illustrations, and wonderful stories make for instant classics -- delightful for children and adults alike. Wake up, publishers! There are a lot of very hungry Capt. Najork customers out there. The first time our family set eyes on this book was when we borrowed it from the mobile library that visits our village. It became a classic when the kids were young, and we went on to borrow it a number of times. Phrases from it became part of our everyday language such as lets do some "high up fooling around and low down fooling around", lets play "sneedball", and I think I'll go and "learn the nautical almanac". When our younger son reached 18 years of age we decided to buy him a copy as a joke present.... We wrapped it and presented it to him at our local pub where we were having a celebratory drink on his birthday. It was a present to be savoured. We ended up having a ceremonial reading in the pub, much to our great amusement. All the other customers wondered what all the laughter was about. Had they known they would have been as hysterical as we were. Whenever the family recalls great examples of children's books this is always at the top of the list. Its a cracking read for grown ups as well. I defy anybody not to laugh. We still have the book and still refer to it....

Christine Wilkie (essay date 1989)

SOURCE: Wilkie, Christine. "Children's Literature." In Through the Narrow Gate: The Mythological Consciousness of Russell Hoban, pp. 88-97. Rutherford, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1989. [In the following essay, Wilkie suggests that Hoban's canon of children's books evolve from the structured, gentle universe of his early novels to a more carefree child-oriented philosophy in his later works.] Of his children's writing Hoban is probably best known for his Frances stories. Written over a period of ten years between 1960 and 1970, they tell about the daily happenings in the life of Frances, a badger with shrewd intelligence, vivid imagination, and tenacious self-will. She first appeared as a badger with bedphobia in Bedtime for Frances (1960) and has since been joined by a sister, Gloria, in A Baby Sister for Frances (1964), who is the object of Frances's jealousy. In Bread and Jam for Frances (1964), she is subjected to bread-and-jam exposure as a cure for being difficult about what she will and will not eat with the family. And she has subsequently celebrated Gloria's second birthday in A Birthday for Frances (1968); made friends with Albert and Gloria in Best Friends for Frances (1969); and finally, she strikes a bargain over a tea set in A Bargain for Frances (1970). These stories are minutely observed and sensitively written, with gentle humor. The jingles and rhymes that appear in the series have been collected in a separate book of verse, Egg Thoughts and Other Frances Songs (1972). In 1987, with fifty-three published titles on his children's list (excluding The Mouse and His Child, 1967), Hoban has reported them to be his most commercially successful children's writing.1

As with most of his early writing, the Frances stories are stories-with-a-message in the study of human relations, and they share a phase in Hoban's children's writing that was about the doings of anthropomorphized furry animals, and sometimes small children, as in Herman the Loser (1961) and Tom and the Two Handles (1965). And nearly all of these early picture books come with illustrations by Lillian Hoban.2 The Little Brute Family (1966) tells of the brutish life of an unidentified animal species who "never laughed and said, Delightful! They never smiled and said, How lovely! "until they are affected by "Baby Brute's little wandering lost good feeling." And in its sequel, A Stone Doll for Sister Brute (1968), Sister Brute learns how to love. Harvey and his sister, Mildred, in Harvey's Hideout (1969), are quarreling brother and sister muskrats whose mutual loneliness drives them to befriending each other, but only conditionally: "Would you make fun of my poems and my tea parties? Would you laugh when I talk to Lucinda? No, said Harvey, I wouldn't. Would you say mean things about the pictures I draw and would you tell me that I do everything wrong when I cook? No, said Mildred. I wouldn't." The Mole Family's Christmas (1969) is clichd and technically less successful, with three very near-sighted moles wanting to see the stars; there are several close encounters with Ephraim, a predatory owl who unwittingly mediates for them with "the fat man in the red suit S. Claus" to get the Christmas-present telescope through which they are able to stare at the stars. Better is Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas, a SouthernAmerican-animal Christmas Carol. It's about risk taking, with a widowed and impoverished Ma Otter and her son Emmet each being willing to risksecretly from the othertheir means of livelihood in hope of winning a fifty-dollar-prize talent competition. It will let Emmet buy Ma a piano and Ma buy for Emmet "something shiny and expensive. It's been such a rock-bottom life for so long, just once at least I'd like to bust out with a real glorious Christmas for Emmet." Neither Ma's singing nor Emmet's "Frogtown Hollow Jug Band" are any match for the electronic "River Bend Nightmare" band. But their talents are spotted by Doc Bull- frog while they sing and play on their return journey from the talent competition. And he employs them at his Riverside Rest as the resident entertainment group known as "Ma Otter and the Frogtown Hollow Boys." Written in 1969 and in a similar vein, it is not clear whether Dinner at Alberta's (1975) is as a story for parents about children or a story for children about parents. But it is an undoubtedly cautionary tale. Arthur crocodile's table manners are appalling; an offense and an embarrassment to his family's middle-class gentility. Arthur chews with his mouth open, talks when his mouth is full, feels the saltcellar, diddles with his spoon, and spills the milk when reaching across the table. But when Arthur is invited with his sister, Emma, to have dinner at her friend Alberta's house, he wants to impress her and submits himself to a six-day program of training in good manners from his family in advance of the visit. "Arthur," said Father, "don't ball up your napkin in your left hand like that." "Too many things to think about," said Arthur. He was breathing hard.

"Relax," said Father. "Listen to how Emma breathes." "Too much," said Arthur, letting out his breath. "What's the good of it all?" "All right," said Father. "Forget it. Just eat at Alberta's the way you eat at home, and let it go at that." Arthur breathed like Emma. "That's it," said Father to Mother. "This is a turning point." At Alberta's his table manners are impeccable. Alberta's father says to her brother Sidney, "You just watch how Arthur eats, and maybe you can learn some manners." After dinner, Albert and Sidney go outside. Sidney returns with a puffed-up lip. When he returns home with his sister, Arthur announces that the nicest part of table manners is "teaching them to other people the way I did to Sidney." In the sequel to this story, Arthur's New Power (1978), Arthur attempts to restore the balance of power to the overloaded electrical system in their house by inventing a water generator. The message for the world from the man and the woman in The Twenty-Elephant Restaurant (1977), illustrated by Quentin Blake, might be the preparedness to take whatever turns up, and whatever turns up isn't always what is prepared for. Their very small, restorative, table-making venture grows into a table-making industry and becomes an idea for a restaurant with a dancing elephant that grows into an idea for a restaurant with seventeen dancing elephants. "One to a table, I'd say. The elephants could wait on the tables, and in their spare time they could practise dancing until they're good enough so people will pay to see them." A motley variety of elephants offering a variety of skills is hired in response to a classified ad for agile elephants. And a dancinginstructor elephant, a chef elephant, and a reliable elephant bring the total to twenty elephants. The main attraction for prospective clientele becomes the spectacle of the oneman-circus, Mr. Buildo. "See Mr. Buildo build a Restaurant single-handed! Admission 50p."; the customers are prepared to watch while eating hot dogs served to them by elephant waiters. The restaurant becomes a huge success. And each time it begins to wobble, the man and the woman and the twenty elephants move to a flat place and begin all over again. "Maybe that's just how it is, I think maybe you're right, said the man. Sometimes its a one-man circus and sometimes it's a twenty-elephant restaurant." The Sea-Thing Child (1972) is a sad and humorous fable of gain and loss. It is closely related to the themes and style of Hoban's adult writing inasmuch as it is about individuals' growth into their own way of being. The sea-thing child is washed up from the ocean deeps and spends an interim existence on the alien territory of a beach, nursing his fears and anxieties: he is afraid of the ocean; hides himself first inside an igloo made by himself from stones, and, after a passing-through and intrepid albatross advises him to "get off the beach before you go barmy and start building stone igloos," he moves,

instead, to containing himself inside a circle he has drawn in the sand. He befriends a melancholy fiddler crab without a bow, falls out with him, and makes friends with him again. Every creature who passes through this story is on its way to somewhere else, is in pursuit of something better: first, the albatross; and then an eel on its way to "far and deep" (p. 24). And so, too, is the sea-thing child. "You will go," said the crab. At night I hear you running in the dark. Sometimes I see you looking at the stars. I hear the humming of the wind that will take you away" (p. 45). And he goes, in answer to what is in him. "He moved forwards against the wind, then he began to run, faster and faster. The beach slipped away from under him, he laughed and flapped his wings and flew up into the storm" (p. 46). La Corona is the beautiful lady in the title story of La Corona and the Tin Frog ((1979). She lives in the picture on the inside of the cigarbox lid, and she is loved by the tin frog who lives inside the box. But she refuses to look at him. It is the traditional story of the frog prince. He swims through the ocean in search of his love, whom he wins and marries; but he does not turn into an enchanting prince. It is the first of four interrelated fairy-tale stories in this book about Victorian toys who live among the bric-a-brac of a children's nursery. La Corona and the Tin Frog share the nursery with "The Tin Horseman," "The Night Watchman and the Crocodile," and "The Clock." The text has been illustrated by Nicola Bayley in the style of a Victorian children's book. The tin horseman in his story has determined to seek the beautiful yellow-haired princess who he is certain lives in the weather castle on a painted card by the window; the tin crocodile in his story has convinced himself for years that he "was going to compose a poem for the literary quarterly edited by the spinster mouse who lived behind the skirting board." And the clock, who watches everything that happens in the nursery, can never do anything "except go on keeping time," in that in-between moment when "his hands touched midnight and just before he sounded his twelve strokes." The tin horseman reaches his princess by conquering his fears. And he breaks the enchantment to which she is bound by a Sorcerer who lives behind the "round red-and-yellow glass-topped box that was the monkey game of skill." The crocodile is inspired to write his poetry when the incenseburning night watchman speaks, "Now is the only time there is!" And the clock in his storywhich is where all the stories convergewalks out of his case, "just the two little walking brass legs of him and walked down the wall. Time can't be kept, said the brass legs of the clock's escapement. And time can't keep you." At this timeless moment when all time is Now, the nursery toys who have assembled themselves at the open window escape into the moonlight. And the Sorcerer goes with them. By contrast, the Whitbread Award-winning How Tom Beat Captain Najork and His Hired Sportsmen (1974) is a witty anti-Establishment tale, with illustrations by Quentin Blake, about a fooling-around Tom who lives with, and

Russell Hoban (essay date 1975)

SOURCE: Hoban, Russell. "Thoughts on Being and Writing." In The Thorny Paradise: Writers on Writing for Children, edited by Edward Blishen, pp. 65-76. Harmondsworth, England: Kestrel Books, 1975.

Arm-wrestling aunts and wicked captains

By Comrade Reviewer Marienka All of us have had an Aunt Fidget Wonkham-Strong in our livesthe kind of aunt who, when we were little, made us eat cabbage-potatosog and learn off pages 65 to 75 of the Nautical Almanac so we wouldnt fool around so much. Fooling around looked suspiciously like playing to the Aunt Fidget Wonkham-Strongs in our lives; and if there was one thing such aunts couldnt abide, it was playing. If we didnt behave, our Aunt Fidget Wonkham-Strongs sent for Captain Najork and his hired sportsmen who taught fooling around boys [and girls] the lesson they so badly need[ed] . . . the dangers of fooling around. Some of us have never recovered from the trauma of an Aunt Fidget Wonkham-Strong. And some of us still have one hanging around, spoiling our parties, raining on our parades, and dispensing advice we dont want. In our adult years, these aunts go by the name of Great Aunt Martha. They are our crosses to bear because we did not learn, indeed never have learned, to stop fooling around. As P.G. Wodehouse once said, Aunts arent gentlemen. You need to be Tom to triumph. Those of us who are lucky are intrepid children who dont stop fooling around and who never learn our lessons and who are never sorry we havent. All of us aspire to be Toms, but most of us wimp out. We simply dont have what it takes to invent an anti-sticky, jam-powered frog or beat Captain Najork and his hired sportsman at games of womble, muck, and sneedball. We need help to best the Aunt Fidget Wonkham-Strongs, Captain Najorks and the infamous bands of hired sportsmen.

By Russell Hoban Illustrated by Quentin Blake Godine 32 pages Enter Russell Hoban to the rescue. In two easy booksHow Tom Beat Captain Najork and His Hired Sportsmen and A Near Thing for Captain NajorkHoban shows us how to show those arm-wrestling aunts whats what. Despite his scheming aunt's efforts, Tom triumphs over Aunt Fidget-Wonkham-Strong and the nefarious Captain Najork (and his hired sportsmen) every time. And in the end theres always Aunt Bundlejoy Cosysweet, who has never stopped fooling around either and who is not sorry she hasnt. Ages 4 to 95 (or 110)

Children's literature
By Peter Hunt It could be argued that Blakes collaboration with Russell Hoban produced one of the twentieth centurys masterpieces for children How Tom beat (1974) in which Hobans deadpan prose and Blakes sly images combine to produce a composite text which remains on the childs side. Blakes virtually incomprehensible picture accompanies Hobans description of the game of womble:

The captains side raked first...six ladders. p. 76 The joint masterwork HT (77) BCN + HHS has text by Hoban and illustrations by Quentin Blake and can be held up as an exemplar of the possibilities of the picture book. I not only explores the balance of power between adults and children, but also pokes fun at the arbitrariness of rule bound world of adult behaviour. Tom beats the Captain at games whose rules are totally obscure even especially with the help of the illustrations: the pictures deliberately do not illustrate (thus shifting the power in the text from book to reader).

Russell Hoban/forty years: essays on his writings for children

By Alida Allison Monsters, Machines, and the Place of Chocolate Cake: Hobans Picture Books by Jamie Madden 25 Puissant youth against Waning Man David Rees Childhood innocence [is] pitted against adult incomprehension, repressed adults disliking nonconformity. The book tells the story of Toms battle to remain a child, and page after page shows him engaging in his favourite activity, fooling around....His maiden aunt, Miss Fidget Winkham-Strong, whose iron hat, bustle, and tight collar would give away her character if her name didnt, objects ... Too much playing is not good; ...You had better stop it and do something useful. In a reading at San Diego State University, Hoban made his personal feelings about turning play into work quite clear: Lets say someone turns a kid loose and the kid is walking along the beach picking up stones. You just know that some grown-up is going to come along and say, Isnt that nice, picking up stones. Now lets sort the stones into colours and lets put them in a box and lets write about sorting stones. Lets work with that.... I just wish that that kid who picked up the stone could be left alone. However, the main thrust of HTB.., of course, is not that play should be allowed despite being impractical, but that all of Toms fooling around actually is useful, for it allows him to defeat Capt Najork, who is employed by aunt FWS to teach Tom a lesson. In fact, aunt FWS makes an attempt to present Capt N as a kind of didactic monster, the monster who stands as a warning against exploration of its uncertain demesnes. But despite her threatening description, he turns out to be no monster at all. Instead he is a man who has turned fooling around into a series of elaborate, competitive, highly constructed games. The bits and pieces with which Tom played have become structured into ridiculous pieces of equipment, as in the sneedball ramp stamped Sneedball Mfg. Coy. But the very seriousness with which Capt. N and his men attack the sports assures their failure, for they pole too hard and shovelled too fast and tired themselves out...to 49.

p. 25 In Capt N, the creative impulse has been tamed. Although the text shows repeatedly that the captains sports have roots in the kind of fooling around that Tom does, games played on ladders and in mud and with barrels, the capt has turned play into a species of work. His sportsmen are hired. He participates in the Sneedball Championship. This is play socialized and thereby weakened; Tom defeats Capt Najork handily. But Ts real enemy in this story is not Capt. N. His enemies are 2 women, Aunt FWS and the princess who does not appear in the book. The first of these women wants to strip away his childhood; so would the second if she were allowed into the story.... Instead, the Capt is given the maiden aunt as a bride, and Tom advertises for a new aunt. Bundlejoy Cosysweet, who had a floppy hat with flowers on it and long, long hair is the woman who combines the best of both worlds for Tom, allowing him both the mature power to determine his own actions and the ability to remain a free creative child. Unlike Toms real and powerful aunt, Bundlejoy is a weak figure. In fact, her weakness is an important part of her appeal for Tom, who flatly tells her, no mutton and no cabbage and potato sog...And I do lots of fooling around. Those are my conditions. She accepts them. Clearly, if she had not, Tom would have looked for another new aunt. But because she is an aunt, instead of princess, Tom is not required to assume the sexual maturity that would follow marriage. So he abjures maturity in favour of the freedom of childhood of course, he is only able to do so through the collaboration of an adult who abdicates her own power of maturity.

CRITICAL RECEPTION
Hoban has enjoyed widespread critical appreciation for his works for both older and younger readers. Christine Wilkie has argued that, "Russell Hoban is one of few contemporary writers of literature for children, who is in the process of challenging the conventions by which the genre has become recognized, and in which the child has become inscribed It invites them to be child enough to be themselves, to make of it whatever they want it to be, and to find in it whatever helps them to experience the actuality behind the appearance of things." Benjamin DeMott suggested in the Atlantic Monthly that "these books are unique, first, because the adults in their pages are usually humorous, precise of speech, and understandingly conversant with general life, and second, because the author confronts not unfancifully but without kinky secret garden stuffproblems with which ordinary parents and children have to cope." Bedtime for Frances, for instance, concerns nighttime fears and is regarded by many as a classic in children's literature; and according to a Saturday Review contributor, "The exasperated humor of this book could only derive from actual parental experience, and no doubt parents will enjoy it." "Hoban has established himself as a writer with a rare understanding of childhood (and parental) psychology, sensitively and humorously portrayed in familiar family situations," noted Allison. For all their suspense, though, "in my books there aren't characters who are simply bad or simply good," Hoban told Fred Hauptfuhrer in People. "Nothing in life is that simple."

RH: Let me read you something I'm working on for a speech to Children's Literature New England in Cambridge: 'All of us live in our minds. Maybe you'll say "oh no, I live in the world, in the real world" but the real world is only available to you through your mind. So you do in fact live in your mind. That's pretty scary, isn't it? The mind is busy all the time, night and day, making sense of what our senses take in: The sounds of traffic, the images on the TV news, the smell of the baby, the taste of strawberry shortcake, the touch of naked skin. Here is the car, there is the office, here is a clock, you're five minutes late for the rest of your life which is now just beginning. Now playing: The Rest of Your Life, starring everybody and everything and also starring you. Night and day, the mind, which is maybe your individual mind, and mine, and may be the one big mind we're all part of, is busy putting the world together and also making its independent connections while you and I are otherwise occupied.' One doesn't know, really, whether one is part of one big Mind or whether there are really individual minds. There are scientists that have put forward the theory of the anthropic universe, which is that the universe is what it is because we are there to witness it. And I have sometimes thought that we are the organ of perception of the universe. That is our function, that's what we do, that's what we are. What I do is what I think most people avoid. I think most people for their comfort and their peace of mind stay within the limited reality consensus that the only reality is what you can see, what can you touch, what is available through the senses. And I think they prefer not to trouble themselves with trying to work out anything more than that. I find that I am addicted to the investigation of the life of the mind and the life of the mind is very very strange indeed. A legacy of Hoban's fascination with ghost stories is the London gothic that permeates his work. It's always dusk on the streets of Fulham, and he is forever finding ways of mythologising the city and its underground. Equally important is his faith in visual art as a trigger for other ways of thinking and seeing. "One character says that if you could grasp one image completely you could grasp everything, and I think there is something in that." His characters are united in their quest to glimpse other modes of being beyond the everyday. As with Hoban's favourite artist, Daumier, this means teasing the border between the seen and the unseen, between reality and dream, so that reading a Hoban novel is like watching a film being played on an opening and closing door: you're never quite sure whether you are looking in or out. This month sees the paperback publication of Hoban's most recent novel, Amaryllis Night and Day (2001), along with two reissued classics: Pilgermann (1983) studies Jewishness at the time of the First Crusade, while Kleinzeit (1974) is a dark and funny hospital-based parable about the exchange between inspiration and despair. Hoban describes Kleinzeit as "the novel closest to me. It just seemed to release my natural voice."

When it comes to the writing process itself, Hoban works by association, and his exobrain is useful here. "When I'm looking for an idea, if I suddenly have a hankering for a particular piece of music or if I go to a shelf and randomly pick a book, I think: maybe something out there is trying to tell me something. I feel as if I am offering myself and I'm hoping that something will come in." Hoban's feeling for the unconscious and the unconventional tries to show us a way back inside, an endeavour often aided by classical mythology. "In an essay, I wrote that all of the human perceptions of forces beyond our understanding and control which have been given the names of gods and goddesses - they're still alive. Those forces are still there and our response to them is still there." Women, he believes, are instrumental in restoring us to the spiritual life. "I think women are essentially stronger than men," he says. "Luisa in The Medusa Frequency [1987] is based on my wife, and the character says of her that she could intuit herself in her self. She didn't need to produce anything, she was simply herself. Whereas he didn't know how to exist without producing something." Usually formidable hybrids of muse, goddess and femme fatale, Hoban's leading ladies, as he writes in Amaryllis, "could lead a man to somewhere he'd never get back from". Which might also be true of Hoban's stories, only he always makes sure to set them against the dull reality that would otherwise claim us. "Sometimes we feel we can curve along with the faade of reality," he says, "but it's tissue-paper thin, and you can fall through it: into the madhouse, into prison, into the cemetery." His modern myths offer a dreaming-space from which to challenge this reality. Naturally, this has made him something of a cult writer - "If by cult writer, you mean very narrow appeal," he laughs. As an autodidact, Hoban denies any idea that his writing is esoteric. Then, with a typical twist of humour, he adds: "But my work's not for people whose lips move when they read, certainly." But there is value in goofing off, fooling around and playing too, which is the moral behind How Tom beat Captain Najork and his hired Sportsmen by Russell Hoban, another favourite book of mine supposedly intended for children. Whilst Eggers reimagined the picture book Where the wild things are for adults, Hoban who is an award winning author best known for Ridley Walker and Angelicas Grotto also writes childrens books, much like Roald Dahl, who also used Quentin Blakes illustration skills. His invented language skills seen in Ridley Walker comes into wonderful play during How Tom where the protagonist has to eat his greasy bloaters and potato sog under the watchful eye of aunt Fidget Wonkham-Strong, who wears an iron hat. Highly highly recommended and like Antoine De Saint-Exuperys The Little Prince reminds us that play is as important as any business ethos.Track down a copy via www.abebooks.co.uk, or Amazon if you must.

Feed your inner child. Just not on cabbage and potato sog.