Maurice Sendak (1985)

Aaron Limbaugh

6/26/2025

Transcript

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00:27Well, The Wild Things was the big challenge in terms of it was going to be my first picture

00:35book. And I was very feeling imperiled about doing this book because full color book, picture

00:40book form, I'd love the picture book form, but I hadn't done it yet. I'd illustrated

00:44other people's picture books, but I hadn't done my own. So it had to be a significant

00:50work and only that it had to come thoroughly out of myself. I mean, it had to be a subject

00:55that was passionately close to my heart. So what was passionately close to my heart was

01:01a kid and a kid doing something and whatever that something was, was what the book was going

01:06to be about. It was called Where the Wild Horses Are for a very long time until I discovered

01:13horrifyingly that I couldn't draw horses. So I had to change the title. I changed the

01:18title various times to things that I could draw. And finally, the best thing was things

01:23because that could be anything. And so my drawing ability wouldn't be challenged by

01:28anybody. And then what did the things look like? Well, I went back into my head as to

01:35who were monsters in my life? Well, they were all my uncles and aunts. Bloodshot eyes and big

01:40huge noses and bad teeth. And they would grab you by the cheek and pummel you and say all

01:47the conventional banal things adults say, like how cute you are and you look so good we could

01:52eat you up. And knowing them, they probably could and would. The real problem in that book was the

01:59writing of the book and how difficult the writing of the book was. Why would a child turn a page?

02:04A child isn't polite. I mean, adults will conscientiously read a book they dislike because

02:11they feel they should. Children don't feel any such compulsion. If they hate the first two pages,

02:17swammo against the wall. That's the end of the book. They don't care if it's won 18 Caldecott

02:21awards, right? Okay. So you've got to catch them. You've got to catch them in a kind of rhythmic

02:27pattern, in a kind of syncopation that makes them turn that page. The night Max wore his wolf's

02:33and it builds and it builds and you trap them. I mean, they can't get out of the book. That's the point of it.

02:41It was published to a lot of noise, which I'll skip. I don't think that's very interesting.

02:57Criticism and rages and carryings on that this would frighten children. Well, I knew it wouldn't

03:03because it didn't frighten me. And I trusted myself in my own instinct and it didn't frighten

03:09children. And if it did frighten some children, well, okay, perhaps it had to. Perhaps, I mean,

03:15why would any one book be good for all children? That's silly. I mean, no grown-up book is good for

03:21all people. So we mustn't assume that even a book that wins the Caldecott is appropriate for every

03:26child reading it. Then after wild things, the next picture book in the night kitchen was 1970.

03:34The reason it took the form of a comic book was because I loved comic books when I was a child.

03:41I didn't have children's books. I didn't even know there were children's books until I went to school

03:46and we had to sit in the auditorium and hear Pinocchio read to us and Winnie the Pooh read to us. I hated

03:51them because I didn't like my teachers and I didn't like being told stories where I had to have my hands

03:56clasped in my lap. Anyway, night kitchen was going to be a comic book and that was that.

04:01And it was going to be simple. It was going to look like Windsor McKay a little bit. It was going

04:05to look like Mickey Mouse a little bit. It was going to look like everybody I loved. And it was

04:09going to tell a story that obsessed me, which is a story about food, which is a story about

04:15why those little creatures of the 1939 World's Fair, those sunshine bakers with their advertisement

04:22that says, we cook while you sleep. Why did they do that? Why didn't they wait till I was up? I mean,

04:28why did everything good happen when children went to bed? So this was going to be a book about a kid

04:34who gets up at night, hears what's going on and investigates. It just feels wonderful because it

04:42has all the energy and zest that a Mickey Mouse cartoon has for me. The action, the power, the movement,

04:50going down, the going up, the scale of it, the logistics of it were a problem. He's in a hundred

04:56different places. He goes down, he goes up, he goes across pages. Some boxes and squares and

05:00oblongs and shapes had to be removed and changed to make room for him and the three bakers.

05:08So the book became a huge, I hope, beautiful garbage pail for memories past and present.

05:15And for me, a picture book that had enormous significance and far and away at that time in

05:22my life was my favorite. It meant more to me than where the wild things are. It was much more

05:29contemporary in feeling. It was much more appropriate to my grown-up life.

05:34really nice to see what's in the woods. Okay.

05:50we, we find just as if I was a young man in life, we have a fullanger in foreign

05:52way, but we can not see the way other has ever to be beautiful in hand.

05:53I do agree with you, Frank. In fact, that I would like to go down, I might be a

05:55family and help me, away in the middle of life, and so you forget that.

05:56And it's good, but I think all the talk will be amazing.

05:58All that we have been doing, but we have to learn what you want supposed to be.

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