We were saddened to learn of the passing of prolific children’s author and illustrator Maurice Sendak yesterday. Sendak was born in 1928 in Brooklyn New York to Polish-Jewish immigrants. His early life was somewhat traumatic as his family came to grips with the death of many of his relatives in Europe during the Holocaust.
After seeing Disney’s Fantasia as a child he knew he wished to be an illustrator, his first illustrations being published in 1947. The 1950′s were spent illustrating numorous children’s books and then in the 60′s he became a household name after writing and illustrating the classic, Where the Wild things Are. Sendak wrote around 20 stories and illustrated over 50. He died from a stroke on May 8.
“Once a month a lumbering green van pulled up in front of our tiny school. Written on the side in large gold letters was State of Maine Bookmobile. The driver-librarian was a hefty lady who liked kids almost as much as she liked books, and she was always willing to make a suggestion. One day, after I’d spent 20 minutes pulling books from the shelves in the section marked Young Readers and then replacing them again, she asked me what sort of book I was looking for.
