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
How do you write for children? I really have never figured that out. So I decided to just ignore it
I don't know how to write a children's book.
I never spent less than two years on the text of one of my picture books, even though each of them is approximately 380 words long. Only when the text is finished ... do I begin the pictures.
I'm writing a poem right now about a nose. I've always wanted to write a poem about a nose. But it's a ludicrous subject. That's why, when I was younger, I was afraid of [writing] something that didn't make a lot of sense. But now I'm not. I have nothing to worry about. It doesn't matter.
As an aspiring artist, you should strive for originality of vision. Have something to say and a fresh way of saying it. No story is worth the writing, no picture worth the making, if it’s not the work of the imagination.
The fan mail I get from kids are asking me questions which they do not ask their mothers and fathers. Because if they had, why write to me, a perfect stranger?
I never set out to write books for children. I don't have a feeling that I'm gonna save children or my life is devoted.
Grown-ups desperately need to feel safe, and then they project onto the kids. But what none of us seem to realize is how smart kids are. They don’t like what we write for them, what we dish up for them, because it’s vapid, so they’ll go for the hard words, they’ll go for the hard concepts, they’ll go for the stuff where they can learn something. Not didactic things, but passionate things.
I want to write something so simple, so short and so silly... and I want it to be for my brother.
I don't write for children. I write, and somebody says, 'That's for children.'
Peter Rabbit, for all its gentle tininess, loudly proclaims that no story is worth the writing, no picture worth the making, if it is not a work of imagination.
I thought that if I were going into old age I would want to do what [Giuseppe] Verdi did, which is to write extraordinary things, and to really find myself.
You cannot write for children They're much too complicated. You can only write books that are of interest to them.
I've convinced myself - I hope I'm right - that children despair of you if you don't tell them the truth.