OH, THE PLACES YOU'LL GO WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS & WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE by Kevin P Albuen

OH , T H E P L ACE S YOU ’ LL G O W H E R E T HE SI DEWA L K EN DS & W H E R E T HE W I L D TH IN G S A R E Edited by Kevin Albuen

OH , T H E PL AC E S YOU ’L L GO WH E R E T H E S IDE WALK ENDS & W HE R E T H E WIL D T H I NGS ARE

ÂŠ Kevin P. Albuen, 2015 Published Spring, 2015 by Kevin P. Albuen GR 601 MS: Type Systems; Lian Ng Academy of Art University, San Fransisco

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O H, THE PLACES YO U’ LL G O WHERE THE S I D EWALK EN D S & WHERE THE WILD THI N G S ARE

Into the illustrious imaginations of Dr. Seuss, Shel Silverstein, and Maurice Sendak.

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Table of

Contents

I NT RO D U C T I O N 6

Theodor Seuss Geisel A N

E X PL O R ATI O N

Background: Before the Cat was in the Hat

8 10

Early Works 16 Noteworthy 18 Legacy:The Cat in the Box Office

Shel Silverstein A N E X PL O R AT I ON

Background 32 Early Works 36 Noteworthy 40 Legacy:The Tree That Keeps on Giving

Maurice Sendak

A N E X PL O R AT I O N

Background 52 Early Works 56 Noteworthy 58 Legacy:The Iconic Wild Thing

T H E RU L E B R E A K E R S & T R A I L B L A Z E RS

NE W B O O K S F RO M O L D M A S T E R S

E PI L O G U E 8 0

Introduction

INTRODUCTION

Seuss Theodor

Geisel A N EXPLO RATI O N

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Indeed, what Walt Disney was to entertainment, Theodor Seuss Geisel was to art and literature.

Theodor Seuss Geisel

B AC KG ROUND

BACKGROUND

Dr. Seuss was a storyteller in the grandest sense of the word. Not only did he tell fantastical tales of far-away places but he also gave us a unique visual language that carried his stories to new heights of artistic expression. Surrealism provided the foundation from which he built his career, but like a launch pad sitting idle just before liftoff, surrealism was soon to be engulfed in the flames of ridiculous fun and its launch tower thrown to the ground with each new editorial cartoon, magazine cover, painting, or children’s book. It was that explosive energy that thrust Ted’s works into otherworldly places, taking young and old alike on a ride that would become a critical reference point for most children from 1937 on, as well as for the adults who raised them. Nearly everyone has a significant Dr. Seuss memory. Many of today’s top visual artists, poets, filmmakers, and authors cite Ted as one of their greatest influences. Indeed, what Walt Disney was to entertainment, Theodor Seuss Geisel was to art and literature. Ted settled on a visual vernacular early in his life that proved to be a powerful vehicle from which to deliver artistically driven media. From early advertising and editorial cartoons to seventy years of paintings, drawings, and sculpture, Dr. Seuss’s horned, whiskered, and winged creatures played while contemplating the issues of the world within deco-inspired landscapes of pure nonsense. These iconographic images became the basis of Ted’s most well-known books for children, delivering messages on such heady topics as racial tolerance, environmental stewardship, nuclear war, and the vital importance of unimpeded childhood fun. Ridiculous fun permeated everything—a rocket’s plume engulfing even his own life story. When explaining the “logical insanity” of his work, Ted said, “If I start with a two-headed animal, I must never waiver from that concept. There must be two hats in the closet, two toothbrushes in the bathroom, and two sets of spectacles on the night table.” That consistency reveals itself across the spectrum of Ted’s life and work. Yet here, with this major survey of his paintings, drawings, and sculpture, the truth of his talent rests undeniably in the power of his unique artistic vision.

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Step with care and great tact, and remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act.

Theodor Seuss Geisel

BACKGROUND

Theodor Seuss Geisel

EARLY WORKS

BEFOR E T H E C AT WAS IN THE HAT Geisel left Oxford without earning a degree and returned to the United States in February 1927, where he immediately began submitting his work to magazines, book publishers, and advertising agencies. Making use of his time in Europe, he pitched a series of cartoons called Eminent Europeans to Life magazine, who passed on it. His first nationally published cartoon appeared in the July 16, 1927, issue of The Saturday Evening Post. This single $25 sale encouraged Geisel to move from Springfield to New York City. Later that year, when he accepted a job as writer and illustrator at the humor magazine Judge, Geisel felt financially stable enough to marry Helen. His first cartoon for Judge appeared on October 22, 1927, and the Geisels were married on November 29. Geisel’s first work signed “Dr. Seuss” was published in Judge, about six months after he started working there. In early 1928, one of Geisel’s cartoons for Judge mentioned Flit, a common bug spray at the time, manufactured by Standard Oil of New Jersey. According to Geisel, the wife of

an advertising executive in charge of advertising Flit saw Geisel’s cartoon at a hairdresser’s and urged her husband to sign him. Geisel’s first Flit ad appeared on May 31, 1928, and the campaign continued sporadically until 1941. The campaign’s catchphrase, “Quick, Henry, the Flit!”, became a part of popular culture. It spawned a song and was used as a punch line for comedians such as Fred Allen and Jack Benny. As Geisel gained notoriety for the Flit campaign, his work was sought after and began to appear regularly in magazines like Life, Liberty, and Vanity Fair. Geisel supported himself and his wife through the Great Depression by drawing advertising for General Electric, NBC, Standard Oil, Narragansett Brewing Company and many other companies. In 1935, he wrote and drew a short-lived comic strip called Hejji.

E AR LY WOR K S The increased income allowed the Geisels to move to better quarters and to socialize in higher social circles. They became friends with the wealthy family of the banker Frank A.Vanderlip. They also traveled extensively: by 1936, Geisel and his wife had visited 30 countries together. They did not have children, neither kept regular office hours, and they had ample money. Geisel also felt that the traveling helped his creativity. In 1936, while the couple was returning from an ocean voyage to Europe, the rhythm of the ship’s engines inspired the poem that became his first book, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street. Based on Geisel’s varied accounts, the book was rejected by between 20 and 43 publishers. According to Geisel, he was walking home to burn the manuscript when a chance encounter with an old Dartmouth classmate led to its publication by Vanguard Press. Geisel wrote four more books before the US entered World War II. This included The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins in 1938 as well as The King’s Stilts and The Seven Lady Godivas in 1939, all of which were, atypically for him, in prose. This was followed by Horton Hatches the Egg in 1940, in which Geisel returned to the use of poetry.

Theodor Seuss Geisel

EARLY WORKS

F. Scott Fitzgerald. Of his many imaginative stories, The Cat in the Hat remains the most iconic.”

N OT E WORTH Y

The August 13, 2007, issue of U.S. News & World Report declared 1957 to be “A Year That Changed America.” The article focused on ten disparate events. Among them were the Cold War Soviet launch of Sputnik, setting off the race for space; the Dodgers and Giants both deserting New York for California, bringing big-time baseball and world attention to the West Coast; growing racial tensions hitting their peak in Little Rock; the introduction of the birth control pill; and a former ad man, Dr. Seuss, revolutionizing the way that children learned to read. U.S. News began the Seuss segment, The Birth of a Famous Feline, with this accolade, “Greece had Zeus— America has Seuss,” and continued in part, “In the 50 years since The Cat in the Hat exploded onto the children’s book scene, Theodor Seuss Geisel has become a central character in the American literary mythology, sharing the pantheon with the likes of Mark Twain and

Ted Geisel had been writing children’s books for twenty years when The Cat in the Hat first stepped into our lives and onto the world stage in 1957, literally supercharging his career. Geisel’s quirky Cat put him on the fast track to becoming a force in children’s literacy due in part to the book’s origins in an emerging philosophy of phonetic learning. Not only was the vocabulary largely taken from a list of 220 beginner’s words but Ted crafted the story in anapestic tetrameter, marking out a cadence that was easy for young readers to grasp. Using this model, Ted, Helen, to whom he would be married for forty years, and Phyllis Cerf, the wife of the Random House president Bennett Cerf, would go on to found Beginner Books at Random House.

Theodor Seuss Geisel

Theodor Geisel, Class of 1925, at work in his studio. Theodor Seuss Geisel died on September 24, 1991, at the age of 87, in La Jolla, California. In 1997, the Art of Dr. Seuss project was launched. Today, limited-edition prints and sculptures of Geisel’s artworks can be found at galleries alongside the works of Rembrandt, Picasso and Miro. Sixteen of his books are on Publishers Weekly’s list of the “100 Top-Selling Hardcover Children’s Books of All-Time.”

NOTEWORTHY

Theodor Seuss Geisel

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In the 50 years since The Cat in the Hat exploded onto the childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s book scene, Theodor Seuss Geisel has become a central character in the American literary mythology.

NOTEWORTHY

LE G AC Y

Well into the 21st Century, the influence of Dr. Seuss lives in the minds, intellect and curiosity of children in his hometown. A Seuss classic, “Oh, the Places You’ll Go,’’ will be the reading material on March 2 at Square One Children’s Center on King Street in Springfield. From 10 to 11:30 a.m. preschoolers, teachers and community leaders will help Dr. Seuss’ hometown celebrate “Read Across America Day.’’ “Read Across America is an annual, nation-wide reading motivation and awareness program created in 1997 by a small reading task force at the National Education Association,’’ said Kimberley A. Lee, vice-president for advancement for Square One. ”This small group came up with a big idea that calls for every child in every community to celebrate reading on March 2, the birthday of beloved children’s author Dr. Seuss,” according to Lee. “Nowhere does this celebration of reading take on more significance than in Dr. Seuss’s hometown of Springfield.’’ Monday marks the 111th anniversary of the birth of Theodor Seuss Geisel, a Springfield treasure whose 46 children’s books became an anthology for the imagination and rhyme. For decades before his death in

1991, Dr. Seuss overcame the most daunting challenge of writing for small children: he made reading fun. In modern society, reading opportunities exist but in forms much different and more varied forms than the simple hardcover and paperback versions of Dr. Seuss’ day. Rather than diminish in importance, the job of encouraging children to develop good reading habits is more significant than ever. “Read Across America Day’’ has engaged people ranging from librarians to celebrities. Like many symbolic days of note, it is designed to bring attention to an ongoing project. Only dedicated Dr. Seuss fans know that prior to 1950, his work was mostly in the field of political cartoons and film documentaries. In the post-World War II era, he turned his creativity to children’s books, bringing parents and grandparents closer to their children with tales that every generation could enjoy. The legacy prevails today. If anything, it is stronger than ever. “Read Across America Day’’ is an opportunity to celebrate his impact in the way Dr. Seuss would have wanted - by exposing children to the joy, imagination and creativity that only reading can provide.

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THE C AT IN THE B OX O FFI C E

Theodor Seuss Geisel

Hollywood, currently busy evolving other means of borderless travel, can live with that – but the shift isn’t such a good sign for American culture as a whole. But if the outside world doesn’t see the glamour any more, then maybe it’s a chance for the US to dig back into the grit again – revitalise shared values and iconic figures that are at its core. One man arguably benefiting from this effect is Theodor Seuss Geisel. It’s striking how strongly adaptations of the anapaestically adroit Doctor’s work have performed in the US as opposed to the rest of the planet – like this year’s environmental fable The Lorax, which has so far taken 68.8% of its $310.8m (£200.5m) domestically. It’s not as though Dr Seuss is unknown, especially in the rest of the English-speaking world, but the US bias among the other recent portovers is hefty: 2000’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas (75.3% US), 2003’s The Cat in the Hat (75.5%) and 2008’s Horton Hears a Who! (52% – not so impressive, but still significant when you consider that the Ice Age films, by the same team, took as little as 16%). The Grinch and Horton both placed in the top 10 of the American charts in their respective years, too.

Dr Seuss’s folksy twang, locked into the anapaestic tetrameter that became his calling card, and rat-a-tat, rat-a-ratted into the heads of toddlers from Miami to Minneapolis, might seem to have something quintessentially Yankee about it. But just as he was part of a larger community of nonsense versemongers, including Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll, there’s no reason why the recent wave of films shouldn’t have also whipped up the same kind of lolloping delirium worldwide. Unwavering scansion hasn’t exactly been at the heart of the adaptations (90 minutes of unadulterated Seuss, instead of 10 minutes’ bedtime reading, might prove an anapaestic overload), and I suspect more practical factors explain the Doctor’s US stranglehold. He’s been at the centre of literacy efforts in the country since 1998 – the annual Read Across America Day takes place on or near what would have been his birthday (he died in 1991) on 2 March. So there’s a massive grassroots marketing campaign already in place – and the Seuss estate has stepped up the pace and the purposefulness of the adaptation treadmill over the last decade.

LEGACY

The personal branding is front and centre these days: the full title is Dr Seuss’s Horton Hears a Who!, and ditto for Dr Seuss’s The Lorax. That’s the kind of solid community backing that’s nearly impossible to replicate on an international scale. The easier-going CGI versions, skating along on a frosted icing of pop-culture references, seem to be breaking through more easily to the rest of the world than the frankly unsettling live-action films of 10 years ago, with, to quote The Cat in the Hat, their “weird hairy man” look. How comfortable Dr Seuss would have been with the upswing in operations is another thing: the film of The Lorax has retained his anti-consumerist message, but gained 70 product-placement partners, which seems to defeat the object. But those kinds of dangers can only grow the further you leave your point of origin behind.

Theodor Seuss Geisel

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If you never did you should. These things are fun, and fun is good.

LEGACY

Shel

Silverstein AN EX P LO RATI O N

BAC KGRO U N D

“And now . . .a story about a very strange lion—in fact, the strangest lion I have ever met.” So begins Shel Silverstein’s very first children’s book, Lafcadio, the Lion Who Shot Back. It’s funny and sad and has made readers laugh and think ever since it was published in 1963. It was followed the next year by four new books. The first, The Giving Tree, is a moving story about the love of a tree for a boy. In an interview published in the Chicago Tribune in 1964, Shel talked about the difficult time he had trying to get the book published. “Everybody loved it, they were touched by it, they would read it and cry and say it was beautiful. But . . . one publisher said it was too short. . . .” Some thought it was too sad. Others felt that the book fell between adult and children’s literature and wouldn’t be popular. It took Shel four years before Ursula Nordstrom, the legendary Harper & Row editor, decided to publish it. She even let him keep the sad ending, Shel remembered, “because life, you know, has pretty sad endings.You don’t have to laugh it up even if most of my stuff is humorous.” He urged readers to catch the moon or invite a dinosaur to dinner—to have fun! School Library Journal not surprisingly called A Light in the Attic “exuberant, raucous, rollicking, tender and whimsical.” Readers everywhere agreed, and A Light in the Attic was the first children’s book to break onto the New York Times bestseller list, where it stayed for a record-breaking 182 weeks.

Shel Silverstein

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When I am gone what will you do? Who will write and draw for you? Someone smarter—someone new? Someone better—maybe YOU!

BACKGROUND

Shel Silverstein

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Anything is possible. Anything can be.

BACKGROUND

EARLY WORK S

Shel Silverstein

Born in Chicago, Illinois on September 25, 1930, Shel Silverstein enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1950 and served in Korea and Japan, becoming a cartoonist for Stars & Stripes magazine. After his stint in the Army was up, he soon began drawing cartoons for magazines such as Look and Sports Illustrated, but it was his work for Playboy magazine that began garnering Silverstein national recognition. Silverstein’s cartoons appeared in every issue of Playboy, riding the high-point of its popularity, from 1957 through the mid-1970s. While at Playboy in the 1950s, Silverstein also began exploring other areas of creativity, including writing and music, and he contributed poems to the magazine, including “The Winner” and “The Smoke-off,” and wrote the books Playboy’s Teevee Jeebies and its sequel, More Playboy’s Teevee Jeebies: Do-It-Yourself Dialogue for the Late Late Show. He also began publishing his own books of cartoons, beginning with Take Ten (1955) and Grab Your Socks (1956). In 1960, Silverstein’s collected cartons, Now Here’s My Plan: A Book of Futilities, would appear with one of his most famous drawings adorning the cover. Around this time, he branched out into music, recording his first album, Hairy Jazz (1959), a record containing several standards and a couple of original songs. Silverstein would go on to produce more than a dozen albums over the course of his diverse career.

EARLY WORKS

Shel Silverstein

EARLY WORKS

Shel Silverstein passed away on May 10, 1999, from a heart attack in Key West, Florida. While Silverstein was celebrated in certain musical circles for his music, it was always his work as an author of childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s books that set him apart, and he produced two of his most memorable in the 1970s: Where the Sidewalk Ends (his first collection of poetry; 1974) and The Missing Piece (1976). When the 1970s came to an end, Silverstein would continue releasing memorable childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s titles, among them A Light in the Attic (1981), a collection of poems and drawings, which went on to win several awards, and The Missing Piece Meets the Big O (1981), a sequel to The Missing Piece.

N O TE WO RTHY

In 1963, Silverstein met Ursula Nordstrom, a book editor, and she convinced him to begin writing material for children, which he did on short notice. Uncle Shelby’s Story of Lafcadio: The Lion Who Shot Back would be the first, appearing that same year. The next year, he wrote two: A Giraffe and a Half and The Giving Tree, the latter of which would go on to become Silverstein’s most popular book. Besides being wildly popular, The Giving Tree is one of the most discussed children’s books of all time. Featuring a boy and a tree, the plot centers on both characters growing up and the boy having less and less time for the tree but more and more need for what the tree can give him. Eventually the tree allows itself to be chopped down to make lumber for a boat so the boy can go sailing.Years later, the boy returns as an old man, and the tree says, “I’m sorry, boy... but I have nothing left to give

you.” The boy says, “I do not need much now, just a quiet place to sit and rest.” The tree then says, “Well, an old tree stump is a good place for sitting and resting. Come, boy, sit down and rest.” The boy sits, making the tree once again happy to serve him. The book is both sad and ambiguous in intent, and for these reasons it was initially rejected by publishers, who thought the book’s themes resided somewhere between those meant for adults and those for children. The book portrays either a bleak or realistic assessment of the human condition (or both) and a stark viewpoint of parent/child relationships, but Silverstein meant to give children a look at life unadorned (others have read religious and anti-feminist themes into the work as well). Regardless of the message, The Giving Tree has been translated into more than 30 languages and is continually named to lists of the best children’s books of all time.

Shel Silverstein

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The Giving Tree is one of the most discussed children’s books of all time.

NOTEWORTHY

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Never explain what you do.

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It speaks for itself. You only muddle it by talking about it.

Shel Silverstein

NOTEWORTHY

Shel Silverstein

LEGACY

Another surprising part of his resume came from the music world. Silverstein began songwriting in 1959 and found a more than reasonable amount of success in the field. He worked with artists like Loretta Lynn, Jerry Lee Lewis and perhaps most notably with Johnny Cash for the song A Boy Named Sue. There’s reason to enjoy a slice of cake today (or perhaps a whipper-snapper from Hey Cupcake!), because it’s the children’s author’s birthday. Silverstein came from a middle-class Jewish family in Chicago, and though he says he’d rather have been able to play baseball, it was drawing which was his talent. He reveals very little about his personal life, with his official website biography beginning with his first children’s book (for a slightly more in-depth biography, check out this Mental Floss article). But in fact Silverstein began writing at Roosevelt University, as the cartoonist for the student paper. His education was cut short when he was drafted for the Korean War, but he continued to write and draw for a military newspaper, earning his first real paycheck for journalism and cartoons and continuing to use comedy to challenge authority. This did not endear him to his military superiors, and nearly cost him a court martial. He survived his cartoon controversy to be discharged in 1955, returning to Chicago and eventually writing for Playboy within the first few years of its publication.

Silverstein spoofed children’s books with his 1961 release Uncle Shelby’s ABZ Book: A Primer for Tender Young Minds. Two years later, after much prodding from friends in the publishing industry, he released his first true children’s book, Uncle Shelby’s Story of Lafcadio, the Lion Who Shot Back. Thus began a career which brought the world books like Where the Sidewalk Ends, Falling Up, A Light in the Attic and The Giving Tree. Silverstein blended his cartoon-drawing and lyrical skill to weave quick stories with lasting discussions.

Though tremendously popular, Silverstein’s work was also the spark of debates. Was his work truly for children, was it appropriate? Certainly his books were not for the very young, and they weren’t simple stories with pat morals and happy endings. They were meant to inspire thought, and can be read over and over again as the years go by. Lines which seemed innocuous in youth can be seen for their dark depth in adulthood, and the destructive relationship between a boy and a tree can be dissected. Silverstein was perhaps the master of children’s books which were not just for your childhood. SIlverstein continued to write and publish up until a few years before his death in 1999 from a heart attack. Ten years later, his books are still just as beloved (and just as hot-button a topic) as they were when they were first released. From Playboy to playtime, Silverstein was a master of words infused with meaning and melody.You must remember...

THE T RE E T HAT KE E P S O N GI V I N G

Where the Sidewalk Ends (1974), was a collection of often humorous poems for children. His whimsical style compelled readers and critics to draw connections between him and Dr. Seuss. Also popular was a 1981 collection of poems that followed, titled A Light In The Attic. In 1976, The Missing Piece was published. It chronicles the adventures of a circle with a wedge of itself missing, who goes along singing and searching for that missing part. But after the circle finds the right wedge, he decides he was happier on the search—without the missing piece—than he is with it. A sequel, called The Missing Piece Meets the Big O, was published in 1981, and was written from the perspective of the missing piece, who discovered the value of self-sufficiency. Falling Up: Poems and Drawings marked Silverstein’s return to poetry for children in 1996, after a fifteen year hiatus from the genre. It was met with widespread critical praise. In 2005, Silverstein’s last book, Runny Babbit: A Billy Sook, was published posthumously. As the title suggests, every poem and illustration in the book consists of

spoonerisms. In an interview with National Public Radio, Mitch Myers, Shel Silverstein’s nephew, who wrote the liner notes for a Best of Shel Silverstein CD and helped compile the new collection of poems, said, “I think he wasn’t sure about how it would be received. It is and was very different. And it’s not easy, even for adults to read. I think, actually, younger children have a better time at it because they’re not so preconceived in their notions of how words work. And the playfulness of it really comes across.” Shel Silverstein’s legacy is the voluminous library of books and records that will forever reach out to people of all ages. Upon his death in 1999, an obituary in Publishers Weekly quoted Robert Warren, Silverstein’s editor, who said that Silverstein “had a genius that transcended age and gender, and his work probably touched the lives of more people than any writer in the second half of the twentieth century.” In 2002, Silverstein was posthumously inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Shel Silverstein

LEGACY

Shel Silverstein

“

LEGACY

I think if you’re a creative person,

you should just go about your business, do

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your work and not care about how it’s received.

Maurice

Sendak AN EXP LO RATI O N

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Maurice Sendak

BACKGROUND

BAC KGRO UN D

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Kids don’t know about best sellers. They go for what they enjoy. They aren’t star chasers and they don’t suck up. It’s why I like them.

Maurice Sendak was born on June 10, 1928 in New York City. The now-renowned children’s author studied at the Art Students League and illustrated more than 80 books by other writers before authoring one himself. His most critically acclaimed work includes the dark and beloved story Where the Wild Things Are. Later in his career Sendak collaborated with Carole King on the musical Really Rosie and has done other work for the stage. Beloved children’s book author and illustrator Maurice Sendak grew up in Brooklyn, New York. The son of a dressmaker, he was a sickly child who started drawing to pass the time. Sendak excelled at art, landing a part-time job at All-American Comics while in high school. While working on window displays for New York’s famed toy store F.A.O. Schwarz in the

late 1940s, Sendak met legendary children’s book editor Ursula Nordstrom. She helped Sendak land his first job illustrating children’s books. During the 1950s, he worked on books by such authors as Ruth Krauss and Else Holmelund Minarik. In 1956, Sendak published Kenny’s Window, the first children’s book he both wrote and illustrated himself. Before long, he turned the children’s book world upside down with his 1963 masterpiece Where the Wild Things Are. Sendak captured the public’s imagination with this tale of a boy’s journey into a strange land inhabited by grotesque yet appealing monsters.

And it is through fantasy that children achieve catharsis.

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It is the best means they have for taming wild things.

Maurice Sendak

BACKGROUND

EA R LY WO R K S

Beloved children’s book author and illustrator Maurice Sendak grew up in Brooklyn, New York. The son of a dressmaker, he was a sickly child who started drawing to pass the time. Sendak excelled at art, landing a part-time job at All-American Comics while in high school. While working on window displays for New York’s famed toy store F.A.O. Schwarz in the late 1940s, Sendak met legendary children’s book editor Ursula Nordstrom. She helped Sendak land his first job illustrating children’s books. During the 1950s, he worked on books by such authors as Ruth Krauss and Else Holmelund Minarik. His illustrations were first published in 1947 in a textbook titled Atomics for the Millions by Dr. Maxwell Leigh Eidinoff. He spent much of the 1950s illustrating children’s books written by others before beginning to write his own stories. In 1956, Sendak published Kenny’s Window, the first children’s book he both wrote and illustrated himself. Before long, he turned the children’s book world upside down with his 1963 masterpiece Where the Wild Things Are. Sendak captured the public’s imagination with this tale of a boy’s journey into a strange land inhabited by grotesque yet appealing monsters.

Maurice Sendak

EARLY WORKS

Maurice Sendak

NOTEWORTHY

N O TEW ORTHY “In plain terms, a child is a complicated creature who can drive you crazy,” Sendak once said in an interview. “There’s a cruelty to childhood, there’s an anger. And I did not want to reduce Max to the trite image of the good little boy that you find in too many books.” Where the Wild Things Are earned Sendak a Caldecott Medal, a special honor for children’s book illustration. In 1956, Sendak published Kenny’s Window, the first children’s book he both wrote and illustrated himself. Before long, he turned the children’s book world upside down with his 1963 masterpiece Where the Wild Things Are. Sendak captured the public’s imagination with this tale of a boy’s journey into a strange land inhabited by grotesque yet appealing monsters. Sendak’s dark, moody illustrations were a shocking contrast to the usually light and happy fare found in a typical children’s book of the time. The main character Max, like many of Sendak’s protagonists, acted like a real child, not some idealized version of youth.

During his long career, Sendak produced more than 50 books, including In the Night Kitchen (1970) and Outside Over There (1981). He also used his creative talents in a number of other forms, collaborating with Carole King for the musical Really Rosie. Sendak designed sets and costumes for stage versions of his books and other productions as well. In early 1980s, he created the sets for several operas, including Mozart’s Magical Flute at the House Grand Opera.

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There’s a cruelty to childhood, there’s an anger. And I did not want to reduce Max to the trite image of the good little boy that you find in too many books.

Maurice Sendak

NOTEWORTHY

Maurice Sendak

children. In his acceptance speech for the Caldecott Medal in 1964, he had this to say about how adults misrepresent childhood:

LEGACY

He was a fearlessly honest writer. He was a talented artist who illustrated over a hundred books, and designed opera sets, musicals, and television shows. His cultural commentary on pretty much any topic—from publishing and mental health to being a young gay Brooklynite in the 1960s—cut to the quick of human experience. He came of age during a period of cultural sanitization and was often criticized for being “too” honest in his books, which spoke frankly to the sometimes-terrifying experience of being a child. Some of his best quotes on creativity, publishing, and children are collected below. Sendak, the child of Polish immigrant parents who lost many family members in the Holocaust, refused to shy away from the realities of childhood; nightmares, monsters, rebellion, and arguments make frequent appearances in his work. Talking to Maus author Art Spiegelman in 1993, he described unsavory parental praise thusly: “People say, ‘Oh, Mr. Sendak. I wish I were in touch with my childhood self, like you!’ As if it were all quaint and succulent, like Peter Pan. Childhood is cannibals and psychotic vomiting in your mouth! I say, ‘You are in touch, lady—you’re mean to your kids, you treat your husband like shit, you lie, you’re selfish… That is your childhood self!’” Though he was routinely criticized by conservative groups for portraying what they saw as “adult” themes, he stood his ground, maintaining that parents (and authors) need to be honest with

“From their earliest years children live on familiar terms with disrupting emotions—fear and anxiety are an intrinsic part of their everyday lives, they continually cope with frustrations as best they can. And it is through fantasy that children achieve catharsis. It is the best means they have for taming wild things.” Sendak was honest about struggling to succeed early in his career. He took a job at FAO Schwartz doing window installations, telling NPR’s Terry Gross that eventually he ran out of steam. “I was too frightened. I just lost it.” A friend paid for his first therapy session, and he made it a fixture in his life. He talked often about feeling pressure from his parents and peers: “Everyone said, ‘Oh, you’re so talented and you’re going to get a book and you’re’—and, of course, nothing happened as soon as I wanted it to.” Talking to the AP, he described his sucess as mundane, saying “I didn’t sleep with famous people or movie stars or anything like that. It’s a common story: Brooklyn boy grows up and succeeds in his profession, period.”

LEGACY

TH E IC O N IC WIL D T H IN G

Sendak was a firm believer in the universality of stories. He laughed at the idea that children’s literature is a separate genre from literature in general. In the same 1993 New Yorker piece with Art Spiegelman, he said “Kids books… Grownup books . . . That’s just marketing.” In an era of iPads and Nooks, he dismissed the digital readers an ultimately unimportant fad, telling the Guardian in 2011, “I hate [e-books]. It’s like making believe there’s another kind of sex. There isn’t another kind of sex. There isn’t another kind of book! A book is a book is a book.”

In 2011, he talked about being preoccupied by death (his long-term partner passed away in 2007): “I have nothing now but praise for my life. I’m not unhappy. I cry a lot because I miss people. They die and I can’t stop them. They leave me and I love them more. … What I dread is the isolation. … There are so many beautiful things in the world which I will have to leave when I die, but I’m ready, I’m ready, I’m ready.” One last quote from this 2011 interview speaks to both his life and work: “I can’t believe I’ve turned into a typical old man. I can’t believe it. I was young just minutes ago.”

Maurice Sendak

LEGACY

Maurice Sendak

Maurice Sendak, author of Where The Wild Things Are, died May 8, 2012 after suffering a stroke. He was 83. Sendakâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Where The Wild Things Are was awarded a Caldecott Medal for best childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s book of 1964, and President Clinton awarded him the National Medal of the Arts in 1996. As well as his work as a writer and illustrator, Sendak was a television producer of series based on his work, such as Seven Little Monsters, George And Martha and Little Bear.

LEGACY

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I cry a lot because I miss people. They die and I canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t stop them. They leave me and I love them more.

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THE RULEBREAKERS & TRAILBLAZERS

The

Rulebreakers & Trailblazers The Children’s Authors Who Broke the Rules By PAMELA PAUL

The stylistic eccentricities of Maurice Sendak, Shel Silverstein and Theodor Geisel, a.k.a. Dr. Seuss, are so much a part of the childhood vernacular today that it’s hard to imagine their books were once considered by some to be wholly inappropriate for children. Yet these three authors — who each have a new book coming out this month in what can only be described as a Seussian coincidence (“But, see! We are as good as you. Look! Now we have new books, too!”) — challenged the conception of what a children’s book should be. And children’s literature, happily, has never been the same. Once upon a more staid time, the purpose of children’s books was to model good behavior. They were meant to edify and to encourage young readers to be what parents wanted them to be, and the children in their pages were well behaved, properly attired and devoid of tears.

Children’s literature was not supposed to shine a light on the way children actually were, or delight in the slovenly, self-interested and disobedient side of their natures. Seuss, Sendak and Silverstein ignored these rules. They brought a shock of subversion to the genre — defying the notion that children’s books shouldn’t be scary, silly or sophisticated.

A B S UR D & I NA PPROPR IAT E

Rather than reprimand the wayward listener, their books encouraged bad (or perhaps just human) behavior. Not surprisingly, Silverstein and Sendak shared the same longtime editor, Ursula Nordstrom of Harper & Row, a woman who once declared it her mission to publish “good books for bad children.” Theirs were books that taught the wrong lessons and encouraged narcissistic misbehavior. In “Where the Wild Things Are” (1963), Sendak’s masterpiece, a child chases his dog with a fork and yells at his mother — only to be crowned king and served a hot dinner. “I developed characters who were like me as a child, like the children I knew growing up in Brooklyn — we were wild creatures,” Sendak said recently in a phone interview. “So to me, Max is a normal child, a little beast, just as we are all little beasts. But he upset a lot of people at the time.” These were books that glorified absurdity and made children laugh at the wrong things. “There’s too many kids in this tub,” begins one Silverstein rhyme, “I just washed a behind / That I’m sure wasn’t mine / There’s too many kids in this tub.”

Nor were these books especially childish. The Little Nemo-esque dream world Sendak concocted in “In the Night Kitchen” (1970) was inspired by the Holocaust of all ghoulish things. Its cheery bakers wear Hitler-esque mustaches and try to stuff a young boy named Mickey into an oven. Mickey, moreover, is brazenly naked, his genitalia accurately depicted alongside what some deemed “phallic” milk bottles and creamy baking ingredients. Was it a masturbatory fantasy sequence or an innocent dream about baked goods? The book predictably landed on the American Library Association’s list of the “most challenged books” of the 1990s. But in 1970, Sendak became the first American to win the prestigious Hans Christian Andersen Award for excellence in children’s book illustration. Still, his books didn’t sit easily in everyone’s idea of the nursery. His next big book, “Outside Over There” (1981), a not-so-cloaked parable of sibling rivalry, tells the story of a gang of goblins kidnapping a baby girl from under her sister’s watch. The book contains mysterious sexual overtones, with the older sister made rapturous by the proceedings. “Can ‘Outside Over There’ really be a children’s book?” Christopher Lehmann-Haupt asked in The New York Times. “Is it appropriate for a children’s book to be raising such questions?” The book, he wrote in a largely laudatory review, had the “quality of nightmare,” and intimidated his “somewhat withered” inner child.

THE RULEBREAKERS & TRAILBLAZERS

Shel Silverstein was similarly suspected of being child-unfriendly. In 1964, Silverstein had trouble finding someone to publish “The Giving Tree.” He had already sold one children’s book, “Lafcadio: The Lion Who Shot Back,” but editors thought “The Giving Tree” fell into a nebulous and unpromising noncategory between children’s book and adult literature. “Look, Shel,” William Cole, an editor at Simon & Schuster, later recalled telling Silverstein, “the trouble with this ‘Giving Tree’ of yours is that . . . it’s not a kid’s book — too sad, and it isn’t for adults — too simple.” Another editor was even more dismissive: “That tree is sick! Neurotic!” “Whimsical” was one word used to describe Silverstein. But it came with a B-side adjective: “weird.” This was a man who had drawn cartoons for Playboy, and who wrote the lyrics to Johnny Cash’s “Boy Named Sue.” Yet “The Giving Tree” went on to sell 8.5 million copies. It was embraced by Christians as a parable of selflessness and has been denounced by feminists as a patriarchal fantasy in morality-tale clothing. Ellen Handler Spitz, the author of the classic study “Inside Picture Books,” wrote that the story “perpetuates the myth of the selfless, all-giving mother who exists only to be used and the image

of a male child who can offer no reciprocity, express no gratitude, feel no empathy — an insatiable creature who encounters no limits for his demands.” With “Where the Sidewalk Ends” (1974) and “A Light in the Attic” (1981), Silverstein turned another commercial noncategory — verse for children — into a bonanza. Like “The Muppet Show,” both books were a hit among grown-ups and children alike; “A Light in the Attic” spent 182 weeks on the New York Times general nonfiction best-seller list, including 14 weeks at No. 1. Sendak and Silverstein had roots in the counterculture, but a deeper forerunner is another contrarian children’s book author, Theodore Geisel, otherwise known as Dr. Seuss. The son of prosperous German immigrants, Geisel studied at Dartmouth and Oxford and had a successful career in advertising promoting insecticide and Standard Oil (don’t tell the Lorax!) before turning to cartooning and then children’s literature.

a typically glowing response, called it “one of the most original and funniest of books for young readers,” adding, “Beginning readers and the parents who have been helping them through the dreary activities of Dick and Jane are due for a happy surprise.” His first effort, “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street” (1937), a story that describes the wild fabrications a boy plans to tell his father before he ultimately tells the truth, was rejected 27 times before finding a publisher. He went on to Bartholomew Cubbins, Horton and the Grinch.

“

Books by Seuss, Sendak and Silverstein are now the classics we reach to when building our children’s libraries.

But the full flowering of his subversive genius came with “The Cat in the Hat” (1957), inspired by lists of words children could be expected to read. “How they compile these lists is still a mystery to me,” Seuss complained in an essay in The New York Times Book Review. The books recommended for young children, he complained, were far beneath their intellectual capacity. And so “The Cat in the Hat” used only 223 different words of near monastic simplicity, showing that one could achieve the sublime under absurd constraints. The Book Review, in

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1999, contains poems about snotty pasta (“Betty, Betty, / Sneezed in the spaghetti, / Made it icky and gooey and wetty”). And “The Bippolo Seed and Other Lost Stories,” a collection of Dr. Seuss stories that appeared previously only in magazines, features the kinds of nonsense that blend right in with the Stinky Cheese Man and SpongeBob SquarePants. Books by Seuss, Sendak and Silverstein are now the classics we reach to when building our children’s libraries. They exemplify the traditions we defend. As Sendak put it at the end of our conversation, “Thank God we have grown up.” is the children’s books editor of the Book Review. PAMELA PAUL

New Books from

Old Masters Seuss, Sendak, and Silverstein By KAREN SPRINGEN

NEW BOOKS FROM OLD MASTERS

Coincidentally, publishers have just released new books from three old masters whose last names start with “S”—Dr. Seuss, Shel Silverstein, and Maurice Sendak. The new titles are making news because of their authors’ fame and age. Seuss died in 1991, Silverstein died in 1999, and Sendak is 83. The timing makes sense. “It’s not surprising it would be fall season because it’s geared toward the holiday sales,” says book historian and critic Leonard S. Marcus. “And publishers love to publish things by well-known authors.” But ultimately, he says, sales will depend on “how good the books are.” Silverstein’s Every Thing On It—released by HarperCollins on September 20—has taken an early lead. It got a one-week head start on Random House’s The Bippolo Seed and Other Lost Stories by Dr. Seuss. And booksellers like it. “I thought that one was just like the Shel Silverstein I know and love,” says Tegan Tigani, children’s book buyer and events coordinator for Queen Anne Books in Seattle. “Immediately I put a shelf talker on it.” Nielsen BookScan reports that for the week ending September 25, Every Thing On It sold 37,000 copies, and Maurice Sendak’s Bumble-Ardy sold 2400.

NEW BOOKS FROM OLD MASTERS

Bumble-Ardy, also published by HarperCollins, came out first, on September 6—but some librarians and booksellers believe the tale about a nine-year-old pig who throws a birthday party for himself is a bit dark for children and may appeal more to adult collectors. Still, some booksellers are bullish on all three titles. At BookPeople in Austin, Tex., children’s book buyer Meghan Dietsche Goel says they are a “big deal.” BookPeople is displaying all three books face out in the front of the store. “So many readers are genuinely excited to see something new from them,” she says. “These things have been all over NPR, all kinds of media outlets. They’re coming in to see what the excitement is about.” Goel ordered about 100 copies of the Silverstein title and has sold more than half of them. She started with 40

copies of Bumble-Ardy and has just put another 20 on order since she is down to about eight. “I really liked it,” she says. “I really appreciate the dark humor of the book and thought it was kind of an outlandish romp.” With Dr. Seuss, she is starting by selling from the corrugated display. In the Brooklyn Public Library system, each of the 60 branches is getting one copy of The Bippolo Seed and one copy of Every Thing On It. Only 35 of them are getting Bumble-Ardy. “Shel Silverstein is so popular,” says Francesca Burgess, children’s materials selector for BPL. “It was kind of a no-brainer. The same thing with the Dr. Seuss. Bumble-Ardy, even though it’s Sendak, it’s not like Where the Wild Things Are. It wouldn’t circulate well everywhere.”

Epilogue

parents who have been helping them through the dreary activities of Dick and Jane . . . are due for a happy surprise.”

His first effort, “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street” (1937), a story that describes the wild fabrications a boy plans to tell his father before he ultimately tells the truth, was rejected 27 times before finding a publisher. He went on to Bartholomew Cubbins, Horton and the Grinch. But the full flowering of his subversive genius came with “The Cat in the Hat” (1957), inspired by lists of words children could be expected to read. “How they compile these lists is still a mystery to me,” Seuss complained in an essay in The New York Times Book Review. The books recommended for young children, he complained, were far beneath their intellectual capacity. And so “The Cat in the Hat” used only 223 different words of near monastic simplicity, showing that one could achieve the sublime under absurd constraints. The Book Review, in a typically glowing response, called it “one of the most original and funniest of books for young readers,” adding, “Beginning readers and the

Today, Sendak’s, Silverstein’s and Seuss’ books define what we’ve come to think of as children’s literature. Their new books are no exception. “Bumble-Ardy,” the first picture book Sendak has written and illustrated in 30 years (it is based on an animated segment that appeared on “Sesame Street” in 1971), tells the story of a rambunctious pig who has never had a birthday party. Naturally, the one he gives himself — absent caregiver! dirty stunts! guzzled brine! — devolves into a mess. “Every Thing on It,” the fourth volume of collected verse from Silverstein, who died in 1999, contains poems about snotty pasta. Books by Seuss, Sendak and Silverstein are now the classics we reach to when building our children’s libraries. They exemplify the traditions we defend. As Sendak put it at the end of our conversation, “Thank God we have grown up.”

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