If you’re lucky enough to be in Denver in the next couple of weeks, you may be able to catch the tail end of the Denver Art Museum’s special exhibit, Wild Things: The Art of Maurice Sendak, through February 23rd. I got to see it earlier this year when I was visiting my hometown (always a Colorado girl at heart!).
The exhibit was bustling with visitors lined up for timed entry. Of course, Sendak is one of the most recognizable names in American children’s literature, so it was not surprising that his work would strike such a chord with the general public. Nevertheless, it was thrilling to look around and celebrate the fact that all those people were immersed in one man’s creative journey, learning about the skill, dedication, passion, and connection that make up the world of children’s publishing.
I have to be honest; I am not a huge Sendak fan. I’m probably making some enemies by saying that, but his creative vision just never clicked with me, even when I was a kid. I found Where the Wild Things Are puzzling and unsettling, and it’s not because I was in any way a stranger to wild imaginative ruckuses. My head was always in the clouds somewhere.
HOWEVER: I am deeply grateful for his contribution to the field of children’s literature.
Sendak took his craft seriously and he took kids seriously. He insisted that children can and should be allowed to deal with the dark, challenging, and scary things of life. He believed that fantasy could engage the fullness of their hearts and minds as they navigate through their world. He honored and respected his young readers as a capable literary audience and rejected the idea that books for kids had to be moralistic or didactic in order to benefit them. Pretty wild, right?
If you get to the exhibit before it leaves on February 23rd, you’ll learn that Sendak considered his Caldecott honor title, Outside Over There, to be the most impactful book for him as a creator. It dug deep into a childhood fear of his and even spun him toward a breakdown after he completed it.
This intrigued me, so I nabbed the last copy in the gift shop that day and pored over it. The text is spare, and the illustrations are nightmarish. It tells the tale of Ida, a girl whose baby sister is kidnapped by malevolent goblins on her watch. Ida embarks to rescue her, clad in jammies and an oversized raincoat, facing down a world of evil forces with nothing but her “wonder horn” and lonely desperation.
It’s weird. It’s creepy.
But it’s also DEEP. It’s the kind of story that sticks with you, nettles your heart, keeps you coming back, to unearth the layers of what is true within it. It is a book that challenges its readers of any age to look for symbolism and explore the notions of fear and courage.
This is what Sendak does as a creator, and this is what picture books are capable of as an art medium.
So, whether you’re a fan of Sendak’s or not, I do encourage you to pick up one of his dozens of books. Read it with a kid. Talk about it with them. Examine the pictures. Let the story sink in. And if you’re in Denver, go check out the exhibit while you still can!
What do you think? Do you have a favorite Sendak book? What did you think of Where the Wild Things Are as a kid? What writer, illustrator, or artist challenges you to go deep?
