AND IT WAS STILL HOT: Maurice Sendak
has passed away at the age of 83; his books will live on forever. In
an October 2011 interview with The Guardian, fascinating for many reasons, he described himself as follows:
I'm totally crazy, I know that. I don't say that to be a smartass, but I know that that's the very essence of what makes my work good. And I know my work is good. Not everybody likes it, that's fine. I don't do it for everybody. Or anybody. I do it because I can't not do it.
And from a 2006 NPR interview:
INSKEEP: ... Is it emotionally hard for you to place children in jeopardy in your drawing? When it gets time to do that page, does it take something out of you?
Mr. SENDAK: No. Because really I think all children are in jeopardy. I think it is unnatural to think that there is such a thing as a blue-sky, white-clouded happy childhood for anybody. Childhood is a very, very tricky business of surviving it. Because if one thing goes wrong or anything goes wrong, and usually something goes wrong, then you are compromised as a human being. You're going to trip over that for a good part of your life.
