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There's certainly some Sendak I haven't gotten to, but this probably the last (and belated!) batch of my Sendak Deep Dive. It's a great final grouping, both evidence of Sendak's diversity and profound strangeness, and as evidence that ratings are a lie, actually—or at least that strangeness is frequently a flaw, sometimes objectively, sometimes just in the reading experience. The other kid's books I've read recently have been evidence that a lot of children's lit is objectively weird; Sendak did not have the monopoly on this. But Sendak's particular weirdness is overwhelming, larger sometimes than the books themselves and nearly the only thing that unites such a diverse body of work.
Anyway, Kenny's Window is probably my favorite of his work, excepting perhaps Where the Wild Thing Are.
Also I posit that "reading a whole bunch of Sendak" is only complete after reading a bunch of the stuff he illustrated, especially for Ruth Krauss; her narratives are so sparse and his art so evocative that their work feels like a true collaboration.
Title: We Are All in the Dumps with Jack and Guy
Author: Maurice Sendak
Published: Michael di Capua Books, 1993
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 55
Total Page Count: 320,190
Text Number: 1122
Read Because: reading the author, hardback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: Some Sendak I appreciate more on a metacritical level than in the act of reading. This does interesting things: it combines two nursery rhymes into a single marginally-more-coherent narrative; it speaks to anxieties about suffering and grief while offering a hidden hopefulness in the act of found-family, which it's fair to view as a metaphor for the AIDS crisis; the art is dense and dark, and there's more diegetic text than actual narrative. But is it enjoyable? I have no idea! What it is is interesting, and strange—strange even for Sendak—but I can't even guess what I would have thought of this as a kid.
Title: Kenny's Window
Author: Maurice Sendak
Published: 1956
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 65
Total Page Count: 320,255
Text Number: 1123
Read Because: reading the author, hardback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: Sendak's first book, and a hidden gem. In writing on the "suck fairy", Jo Walton describes a child reader's ability to spin an entire experience out of a single descriptive line, and that feels like both the intent and effect of this entire book. It's longer than most Sendak, but deceptively so: the plot moves in fairytale-esque repetitions, and something numinous but unexplored sits in the four-legged rooster dream guide, in the horse on the roof that no one can see. These brief and evocative lines are nearly eclipsed by more detailed dialogs with toy soldiers and talking goats, but those scenes have a whimsy and an inward-looking, philosophical bent. It's ironically less surreal than most Sendak, but dreamlike, childlike. The art is less accomplished than his later work, but the expansive panels frame the extensive text beautifully.
Title: My Brother's Book
Author: Maurice Sendak
Published: Michael di Capua Books, 2013
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 30
Total Page Count: 330,200
Text Number: 1182
Read Because: reading the author, hardback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: Dense, dreamy, and inaccessible; also intuitive and heartfelt, mythologizing the ineffability of grief. This was for me more emotional for its posthumous status and its focus on death than for the text itself, because it doesn't resonate with my conceptions of loss—these aren't my metaphors. But it's one of those quietly demanding books that gives back whatever effort the reader puts in. I liked it more on reread; I like it even more now, a few days later.
Title: Seven Little Monsters
Author: Maurice Sendak
Published: HarperCollins, 2008 (1977)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 10
Total Page Count: 331,605
Text Number: 1186
Read Because: reading the author, paperback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: Short, sweet, and not especially robust, although I imagine that the combination of repetition and variation across the seven monsters works well for a very young audience. But this is the charming and gently weird side of Sendak and, particularly because the monsters are reminiscent of Where the Wild Things Are, it's endearing.
Anyway, Kenny's Window is probably my favorite of his work, excepting perhaps Where the Wild Thing Are.
Also I posit that "reading a whole bunch of Sendak" is only complete after reading a bunch of the stuff he illustrated, especially for Ruth Krauss; her narratives are so sparse and his art so evocative that their work feels like a true collaboration.
Title: We Are All in the Dumps with Jack and Guy
Author: Maurice Sendak
Published: Michael di Capua Books, 1993
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 55
Total Page Count: 320,190
Text Number: 1122
Read Because: reading the author, hardback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: Some Sendak I appreciate more on a metacritical level than in the act of reading. This does interesting things: it combines two nursery rhymes into a single marginally-more-coherent narrative; it speaks to anxieties about suffering and grief while offering a hidden hopefulness in the act of found-family, which it's fair to view as a metaphor for the AIDS crisis; the art is dense and dark, and there's more diegetic text than actual narrative. But is it enjoyable? I have no idea! What it is is interesting, and strange—strange even for Sendak—but I can't even guess what I would have thought of this as a kid.
Title: Kenny's Window
Author: Maurice Sendak
Published: 1956
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 65
Total Page Count: 320,255
Text Number: 1123
Read Because: reading the author, hardback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: Sendak's first book, and a hidden gem. In writing on the "suck fairy", Jo Walton describes a child reader's ability to spin an entire experience out of a single descriptive line, and that feels like both the intent and effect of this entire book. It's longer than most Sendak, but deceptively so: the plot moves in fairytale-esque repetitions, and something numinous but unexplored sits in the four-legged rooster dream guide, in the horse on the roof that no one can see. These brief and evocative lines are nearly eclipsed by more detailed dialogs with toy soldiers and talking goats, but those scenes have a whimsy and an inward-looking, philosophical bent. It's ironically less surreal than most Sendak, but dreamlike, childlike. The art is less accomplished than his later work, but the expansive panels frame the extensive text beautifully.
Title: My Brother's Book
Author: Maurice Sendak
Published: Michael di Capua Books, 2013
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 30
Total Page Count: 330,200
Text Number: 1182
Read Because: reading the author, hardback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: Dense, dreamy, and inaccessible; also intuitive and heartfelt, mythologizing the ineffability of grief. This was for me more emotional for its posthumous status and its focus on death than for the text itself, because it doesn't resonate with my conceptions of loss—these aren't my metaphors. But it's one of those quietly demanding books that gives back whatever effort the reader puts in. I liked it more on reread; I like it even more now, a few days later.
Title: Seven Little Monsters
Author: Maurice Sendak
Published: HarperCollins, 2008 (1977)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 10
Total Page Count: 331,605
Text Number: 1186
Read Because: reading the author, paperback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: Short, sweet, and not especially robust, although I imagine that the combination of repetition and variation across the seven monsters works well for a very young audience. But this is the charming and gently weird side of Sendak and, particularly because the monsters are reminiscent of Where the Wild Things Are, it's endearing.
