Maurice Sendak the Author

Maurice Bernard Sendak, an award winning author and illustrator was born on June 10, 1928 in Brooklyn, New York to Philip Sendak and Sadie Schindler, Polish immigrants from small Jewish villages outside capital of Poland who came to the United States before World War I. Sendak, the youngest child, along with his sis Natalie, and pal horseshit grew up in a poor section of Brooklyn.Sendak was indisposed in his early years. He suffered from measles, double pneumonia, and scarlet fever amidst the ages of two and quartette and was barely allowed outside to play. He spent a great deal of his childhood at home. To pass the time, he draw pictures and read comic platters. His father was a wonderful storyteller, and Maurice grew up enjoying his fathers chimerical tales and gaining a lifelong appreciation for books.His sister gave him his first book, Mark Twains The Prince and the Pauper. As a young adult, he liked great adventure stories such(prenominal) as Typee and Moby Dick by Herma n Melville. Other favorites were Bret Hartes short story, The Luck of hollow Camp and Robert Louis Stevensons A Childs Garden of Verses.Young Sendak didnt like school much. He was obese, sometimes stammered and wasnt good at sports but excelled in his art classes. At home, he and his brother Jack made up their own storybooks by combine stark nakedspaper photographs or comic strip segments with drawings they made of family members. Maurice and his brother both(prenominal) inherited their fathers storytelling gift.At age twelve, Sendak with his family saw Walt Disneys Fantasia, which had kneadd him to compose a car withalnist. They also went to the local movie houses and occasionally his older sister would take him to Manhattan to see movies at the Roxy or Radio City euphony Hall. The 1930s films, including Busby Berkeley musicals and Laurel and Hardy comedies, had a profound influence on some of his illustrations.The World War II influenced Sendaks view of the innovation as a dark and frightening place. His relatives died in the Holocaust Natalies fianc was killed and Jack was stationed in the Pacific. Sendak spent the war years in noble school, workings on the school yearbook, literary magazine, and newspaper. While still in high school, he began his work as illustrator for All-American Comics, drawing background details for the mongrel and Jeff comic strip. At nineteen, he illustrated for his high school biology teachers book, Atomics for the Millions make in 1947.In 1948, Sendak and his brother Jack, created models for six wooden mechanical toys in the dah of German eighteenth-century lever-operated toys. He did the painting and carving, Jack engineered the toys, and Natalie sewed the costumes. The boys withalk the models to the F.A.O. Schwartz, a far-famed toy store in New York, where the prototypes were admired. They got turned down because the toys were considered too expensive to produce but the window-display director was impressed with Sendaks talent and leased him as a window dresser.He continued working there for four years while taking night classes at the New York trick Students League. He took classes in oil painting, life drawing, and composition. He also spent time in the childrens book department perusing the great nineteenth-century illustrators such as George Cruikshank, Walter Crane, and Randolph Caldecott as well as the new postwar European illustrators, Hans Fischer, Felix Hoffmann, and Alois Carigiet.While at Schwartz, Sendak met Ursula Nordstrom, the childrens book editor at harpist and Brothers. He was offered to illustrate his first book, Marcel Aymes The Wonderful Farm (1951) that he did when he was twenty-three. Nordstrom arranged Sendaks first great success as the illustrator for. Ruth Krausss award winning A Hole Is to savvy (1952). Sendak quit his full time job at Schwartz,move into an apartment in Greenwich Village, and become a freelance illustrator.By the early 1960s, Sendak had becom e one of the virtually expressive and interesting illustrators inthe business. The publication of his book, Where the Wild Things are in 1963 brought him internationalacclaim and a place among the worlds great illustrators, though the books portrayals of fanged monstersconcerned critics saying that the book was too scary for sensitive children.Just as Sendak was gaining success, tragedy struck. In 1967, he learn that his mother had developed cancer, he suffered a major coronary attack, and his sexual love dog Jenny died. In spite of his troubles, he completed In the Night Kitchen in 1970, which generated more controversy for presenting pictures of a young boy innocently prancing naked done the story. This book regularly appears on the American Library Associations list of frequently challenged and banned books.Twenty years later, with Were all in the Dumps with Jack and Guy (1993), Sendak delivered another jolt. This time the troubling plot line revolved around a kidnapped black baby and two light homeless men. Some critics argued that the illustrations were nightmarish and too strong. Some people tangle that his stories were too dark and disturbing for children. But the majority view was that Sendak, through his work, had pioneered a completely new way of writing and illustrating for, and about, children.Over the years he has produced a number of beloved classics, both as a saver and as an illustrator. His whole caboodle also cover a broad range, not only in subject matter, but also in behavior and tone, from nursery rhyme stories, like Hector The Protector and As I Went Over The Water, to concept books, like Alligators All Around Us and the howling(a) Chicken Soup With Rice. As an illustrator, his projects have included Else Holmelund Minariks Little Bear, the Newbery winners single-foot on the School and The House of Sixty Fathers with Meindert DeJong, and illustrations of works by Herman Melville (Pierre) and George MacDonald (Light Princess and well-to-do Key).In 1980, Sendak began to develop productions of opera and ballet for stage and television. He produced an animated TV production based on his work entitled Really Rosie, featuring Carole King, which was spread in 1975. He also designs sets and costumes, and even writes librettos. He was invited to design the sets and costumes for the Houston deluxe Operas production of Mozarts The Magic Flute. This began a long collaboration, which included several works such as Sergei Prokofievs The Love for Three Oranges and Leos Janaceks The pat Little Vixen, Los Angeles County Music Centers 1990 production of Mozarts Idomeneo, the award-winning Pacific northwestward Ballet production of Tchaikovskys The Nutcracker and Humperdincks Hansel And Gretel.In the 1990s, Sendak approached playwright Tony Kushner to write a new English version of the Czech composer Hans Krsas childrens opera Brundibar. Kushner wrote the text for Sendaks illustrated book of the same name, published i n 2003. The book was named one of the New York Times Book Reviews 10 Best Illustrated Books of that year. In 2003, Chicago Opera Theatre produced Sendak and Kushners adaptation of Brundibar. In 2005 Berkeley Reparatory Theatre, in collaboration with Yale Reparatory Theater and Broadways New Victory Theater, produced a substantially reworked version of the Sendak-Kushner adaptation.Sendak, whos been called the Picasso of childrens books, has illustrated or written and illustrated over 90 books since 1951 and have garnered so galore(postnominal) awards. He received the 1964 Caldecott Medal for Where the Wild Things Are and the Hans Christian Andersen world(prenominal) Medal in 1970 for his body of childrens book illustration. He was the recipient of the American Book Award in 1982 for Outside Over There. He also received in 1983 the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award for his contributions to childrens literature. In 1996, President measure Clinton honored Sendak with the National Medal of Arts. In 2003, Maurice Sendak and Austrian author Christine Noestlinger share the first Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award for Literature given by the Swedish government.Sendak, now seventy-eight, has been a major force in the evolution of childrens literature. He is considered by many critics and scholars to be the first artist to deal openly with the emotions of children in his drawings both in books and on the stage, in his opera and ballet sets and costumes. This abilityto accurately depict raw emotion is what makes him so appealing to children.ReferencesKennedy, E. The artwork and Influence of Maurice Sendak. Your Guide to Childrens Books. RetrievedOctober 1, 2006 from http//childrensbooks.about.com/cs/authorsillustrato/a/sendakartistry.htmMaurice Sendak. Encyclopedia Britannica (2006). Retrieved kinsfolk29, 2006, from Britannica ConciseEncyclopedia http//concise.britannica.com/ebc/article-9378228/Maurice-SendakMaurice Sendak.Maurice Sendak. Encyclopedia of World Biography (2005 ). Retrieved September 25, 2006, fromhttp//www.bookrags.com/biography/maurice-sendak/Mitchell, G. Biography of Maurice Sendak. abut the Writers. Retrieved September 25, 2006, from http//www.barnesandnoble.com/writers/writerdetails.asp?z=y&cid=90225