Maurice Sendak
Maurice Sendak
Maurice Bernard Sendakwas an American illustrator and writer of children's books. He became widely known for his book Where the Wild Things Are, first published in 1963. Born to Jewish-Polish parents, his childhood was affected by the death of many of his family members during the Holocaust. Besides Where the Wild Things Are, Sendak also wrote works such as In the Night Kitchen, Outside Over There, and illustrated many works by other authors including the Little Bear books by Else...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionChildren's Author
Date of Birth10 June 1928
CityBrooklyn, NY
CountryUnited States of America
I've convinced myself - I hope I'm right - that children despair of you if you don't tell them the truth.
Grown-ups are afraid for children. It's not children who are afraid.
I only have one subject. The question I am obsessed with is: How do children survive?
How do you write for children? I really have never figured that out. So I decided to just ignore it
I do not remember any proper children's books in my childhood. I was not exposed to them.
Do parents sit down and tell their kids everything? I don't know. I don't know. I've convinced myself - I hope I'm right - that children despair of you if you don't tell them the truth.
I don't know how to write a children's book.
Parents shouldn't assume children are made out of sugar candy and will break and collapse instantly. Kids don't. We do.
I think there is something barbaric in children, and it's missing in lots of books for them because we don't like to think of it. We want them to be happy [but] childhood is a very tough time.
I adored Mickey Mouse when I was a child. He was the emblem of happiness and funniness.
If life is so critical, if Anne Frank could die, if my friend could die, children were as vulnerable as adults, and that gave me a secret purpose to my work, to make them live. Because I wanted to live. I wanted to grow up.
There's something in this country that is so opposed to understanding the complexity of children.
To be a healthy person, you have to be sympathetic to the child you once were and maintain the continuity between you as a child and you as an adult.
I was a very sickly child. My parents were immigrants. They were not decorous. They were not discreet. They always thought I was gonna die.