My blogger pal Tony Laplume is hosting his first bloghop this week! The Ode-athon is an opportunity to celebrate our favorite authors. Care to learn more? Go visit Tony either here or here.
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There was one book, however, of which I never tired. Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are is, in my humble opinion, the golden masterpiece of the medium. While I liked the book as a boy, I grew to love it as a father. The pictures are the easy sell for a kid. But for me as the read-aloud parent, the text was miraculous. Words like "he sailed off through night and day and in and out of weeks and almost over a year" trip off the tongue so effortlessly that each reading was a soothing pleasure.
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| via Wikipedia |
- The Nutshell Library, the stories and illustrations of which would later become part of the Sendak produced television special, Really Rosie.
- In the Night Kitchen, a book frequently banned for perfectly innocent child nudity. The Caldecott committee didn't blush. A New York City skyline created from the items in a kitchen pantry? Genius!
- The Little Bear series, written by Else Holmelund Minarik and illustrated by Sendak. Our Girl first fell in love with the television series but the books are far better. Little Bear's Visit is my personal favorite.
Go check out the other entries in the Ode-athon:
The Little Bear was a nightly read to my daughter for a few months. We loved Little Bear.
ReplyDeleteThere's a story in Little Bear's Visit about Little Bear's mother as a little girl and a robin she befriended. The TV adaptation breezed past me but in the book, the symbolism was crystal clear and I was practically in tears reading it the first time.
DeleteOH how I love this post Squid. Sendak was a legend to me as well. Also, when my girls grew past the Little Bear stage, I lamented it. I loved Little Bear! Funny story, the first time all three of my girls went to school for the first time, I didn't know what to do with myself. I made myself a hot cup of coffee (which was a rarity) and sat down to watch an episode of Little Bear, all by myself and cried. I truly felt the impact of them "leaving the nest" that morning!
ReplyDeleteWhen I was little girl, one of our favorites in my Italian household was the classic "Strega Nona". The first copy I owned literally fell apart from all the times my mother had to read it to us, over and over again. We knew it by heart, but that just made it all the better somehow.
I love your Little Bear story and totally understand.
Delete"Strega Nona" is another great one!
Where the Wild Things Are was a must in my house as well.
ReplyDeleteI've seen a lot of Little Bear cartoons both my kids loved them!
I'm assuming, from your blog, avatar, etc., that your kids are also likely to be well indoctrinated in the Doctor Who franchise. My daughter knows Eccleston onwards but we haven't delved much before that. We tried the very first episode and she wasn't too impressed. Any recommendations for further exploration?
DeleteBBC America has been showing The Doctors Revisited with an episode of that Doctor afterward. My son liked The first Doctor in the Aztecs, but his favourite so far is Sylvester McCoy they showed Remembrance of the Daleks as his episode who could blame him that was an outstanding episode. Try as I did He just isn't a Tom Baker fan.....YET! *cue evil laughter* HA,HA,HA!
DeleteWe no longer get BBC America (sniff, sniff). We miss it. We're looking forward to the 50th anniversary special, though!!!
DeleteThat last bit probably didn't make much sense. We get Dr. Who streamed through Amazon, older episodes via Netflix. The anniversary special will be available in time for our brunch gathering planned for the following day!
DeleteWill you be able to see it in 3D?
DeleteI don't know. We haven't tried that.
DeleteIs that your plan?
In the Night Kitchen took a beating for more than just what you have written here. Apparently, some critics went so far as to compare having the child being coaxed into the oven with Nazi practices.
ReplyDeleteI remember thrilling at the book as an adolescent when I was introduced to it by a boyfriend who knew I loved Where the Wild Things Are as a kid. It felt like a cool secret. When I read that literary criticism later, I felt sick. As an adult, I've come to realize that while art is dynamic, not every interpretation should influence our interaction with it. Some things should remain beyond the reach of tragic spoil--magical children's literature foremost among them. We don't do enough to nurture unadulterated (and I mean that in the most literal sense) play in our (sometimes) opinion-bloated culture.
Yeah sure, a gay, Jewish man is going to celebrate the Nazis. Man, people are idiots...
DeleteTo his credit, at least later in life, Sendak didn't seem overly troubled by the criticisms.
I was always fascinated by Wild Things, one of my childhood touchstones for sure. When the live action movie was released, I was both amazed and underwhelmed. The movie itself seemed far less magical than its fantastic trailer, and magical is what this story is all about. I've never read Sendak otherwise, however.
ReplyDeleteI've never seen the movie. To be honest, I don't think I could bear it! The story is so near perfect in its original form. Movies are inevitable, I realize, but this one really could have been left alone.
DeleteYep, loved that book and loved Little Bear as a kid. We have The Night Kitchen around somewhere, too.
ReplyDeleteAnother book that never grew old for me: The Monster At the End of This Book.
I was just chatting with a couple of friends about that one recently! It's worth keeping around just for genuine uniqueness.
DeleteI loved Sendak as well, and was so grateful my children also loved his books. We read The Night Kitchen so often I bet my kids still have it memorized. And I loved loved loved reading the Little Bear books to my kids. So very sweet and gentle, like a cuddle in book form.
ReplyDeleteA cuddle in book form - that's a nice way to put it.
DeleteSendek's work is brilliant. I always knew about "Wild Things" but the Little Bear show and books reminded me how much I loved his book when I was a kid. I'd forgotten all about it. You chose a brilliant author A.S.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Maurice. Happy Ode-athon!
DeleteThanks, Jen!
ReplyDelete