Maurice Sendak, Leonard Marcus and Google's Wild Doodle

 If you saw the Fine Books Facebook page on Monday you may have been enticed to guess who will grace the magazine's summer cover.  A hint to seek out that day's Google Doodle (see below) would have led you to Maurice Sendak, arguably the twentieth century's preeminent illustrator of children's books.   Google created the Doodle because Sendak would have celebrated his 85th birthday on Monday.  (Sendak died last May.)


 Leonard Marcus, a leading authority on children's books and illustrations, has written a story for the summer issue discussing Sendak and his work. Marcus is also the author of Show me a Story! Why Picture Books Matter (Candlewick 2012) and recently edited a catalogue in conjunction with an exhibition of over 200 of Sendak's previously unpublished art and sponsored by the New York Society of Illustrators.


Bill Clinton dubbed Sendak "The King of Dreams" when he awarded him the National Medal of Art in 1996.  The Brooklyn native wrote and illustrated close to 100 titles, including perhaps most notably Where the Wild Things Are. He was awarded a Caldecott Medal and the Hans Christian Andersen Award, among many others throughout his sixty-year career. 


Children of all ages can cite their favorite book. Mine is Dear Mili, an unpublished Wilhelm Grimm tale rediscovered in 1983 and published with Sendak's illustrations in 1988.  The images of death and miracles are wild - abnormally vivid forests, little girls with very large feet, and psychedelic landscapes. I remember reading it as a child, and while the story itself frightened me, I could not stop gazing at those wonderful images and following Mili on her unflinching quest.  In Show me a Story! Marcus asks Sendak about Mili. His response illustrates his complete understanding of children: "...she has the same kind of trudging, hard-working quality that I love in children. They're trudging children; they go and do what they must do."


A little Father's Day tribute regarding Dear Mili: as a prized possession, I have a poster for the book, signed by Sendak, that my father stood in a long line to get at an ABA Convention the year of publication. It's the only time he ever queued up at any book convention to get a poster signed. And since Sendak was only autographing one poster per customer, my doting dad got right back in line and procured another so that my sister and I might each have one.