Where the [Banned] Things Are

Banned Book of the Day: In the Night Kitchen

I heard an interview with Maurice Sendak on NPR this morning. Not about "In the Night Kitchen," his oft-challenged book of 1970, but for his newest, "Mommy?", a pop-up book. He spoke about 19th-century German pop-up artist Lothar Meggendorfer (included in UNT's pop-up book collection), about putting children in danger in his books, and how people "treat you like you're Helen Keller" when you age.

Here's another NPR interview with Sendak from last year.

Sendak didn't intend "In the Night Kitchen" to be such a controversial book (there were complaints because the protagonist, a young boy, is naked throughout much of the book). Then again, parents of that day weren't too thrilled about the badly-behaved Max in Where the Wild Things Are, either; now, it's beloved by parents and children everywhere.