One thing you will quickly learn about me if you continue to read my blog is that I am a huge connoisseur of children’s literature. Not only was I a elementary school teacher, but I was also a school librarian for a few years and worked for about 5 years in a bookstore dedicated to children’s books.  I have a collection of, well, I am afraid to count, but I have a lot of children’s books.  I am also a bit of a book snob. A good book to me has to capture my attention from the first page, the illustrations must be unique and add a dimension to the book that would be lost without them and, the story, well it darn well better be a good story.

One of my favorite authors is Maurice Sendak. He is a brilliant writer and his illustrations are the perfect match to his writing.  But something has disturbed me over the years about peoples’ responses to his writing. They say things like, “His books are too scary.” or “The stories are too strange.” Okay, I will grant them some of that. They can be a bit scary and even a bit odd, but if you know what Sendak is trying to accomplish, then you will realize just why his books  are the way they are.

Sendak writes about what children know. His books “acknowledge the terrors of childhood, how vicious and lonely it can be.”  If you read anything about Sendak’s personal history, he lived many of the terrors of childhood and knows first hand how awful they can be.   He does not “dumb down” his writing for children. In fact, he says himself that he hates being known as a children’s book author. He says “it belittles [his] talent.”  He also says that he “refuses to lie to children…[he] refuse[s] to cater to the bullshit of innocence.”