Farewell, Maurice Sendak

May 9, 2012 | News

On Tuesday morning, celebrated author and lovable curmudgeon Maurice Sendak died at the age of 83. Inevitably, this caused a flood of Sendak-love to break forth all over the internet. What I found interesting was that some of this love came from some children, yes, but more often than not the love came from adults. Adults who were introduced to his stories as children and still had to fight the urge to start a wild rumpus. There were even adults who were introduced to his stories as adults and were equally as captivated. I like to think this would have pleased the man who is famously quoted as saying “I do not believe that I have ever written a children’s book. I don’t know how to write a children’s book. How do you set out to write a children’s book? It’s a lie.”

So much has been said about Maurice Sendak at this point that I feel like any more I could say would just be a drop in the ocean, so to speak. Instead, I thought I’d sift through some of the articles/videos and share with you some of what I found. Take a little time, read an article or two, and help say goodbye to one of the greats.

Articles

This is a great piece from The Daily Beast in which the author rediscovers Sendak’s work as an adult.

This piece is also from The Daily Beast. It is a lovely, personal story from Sendak’s friend, William Joyce.

This piece from The Huffington Post highlights Sendak’s philanthropy.. It also features a nice photo slideshow at the end.

The title of this article from The Atlantic is “He Scared Children Because He Loved Them”. It is a beautiful examination of the scope and meaning behind Sendak’s work.

Videos

This video has been making the rounds again. It is President Obama reading Where the Wild Things Are at this year’s Easter Egg Roll.

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Stephen Colbert went on “Live With Kelly” Tuesday morning to promote a children’s book that was inspired by Sendak. This was of course also (coincidentally) time of Sendak’s death, so Colbert turned it into a loving and funny tribute to the author:



Here are also part one and two of the interview with Sendak Colbert referenced:

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To show what kind of creativity Sendak inspired, this is a claymation interpretation of Where the Wild Things Are that I found online:

Farewell, Maurice Sendak.