A legacy of storytelling that inspired a generation of authors
Award-wining writers say kids love ‘gross’ imagery and raw emotions
Maurice Sendak has influenced generations of children’s authors and artists. Looking back on his career in the 2009 Spike Jonze documentary Tell Them Any
thing You Want, Sendak reflects, “What I offered was different — not because I drew or wrote better than anybody, but because I was more honest than anybody.” Here, two current writers talk about his impact on their work. Barbara Reid According to author and plasticine artist Barbara Reid, who has won the Governor General’s Award for illustration, Maurice Sendak has influenced generations of artists: “He took his work very seriously — and took children very seriously.”
Recently, she led workshops for children to design their own plasticine Wild Things at the Toronto Reference Library. They love Sendak’s more vividly strange imagery because “Children are gross,” she said with a laugh. And a book such as Wild Things remains relevant because children relate to Max: “When a kid is angry, it’s so raw, and they see that in a book, and go, ‘Yeah, I feel like that.’ They don’t have life experience to know they’ll get over it. I don’t think they need to be shielded from it; they’re living in big drama.”
Reid dug deep into Sendak’s work when she was devising her own style; the expressive nature of the animals in work such as her new book, Sing a Song of Bedtime, were inspired by Sendak’s warm illustrations for Else Holmelund Minarik’s Little Bear books in the 1950s and ’60s.
“When you’re starting out and you’re insecure, (people say), ‘Oh, you just make little children’s books like it’s nothing.’ And you read how important it was to him — that was really encouraging to keep at it and do a good job.” Brian Selznick Bestselling children’s author and illustrator Brian Selznick was a friend of Sendak’s — when they met in the early 2000s, the elder author saw in him unrealized potential. His advice: “Don’t wait for someone to give you something (to write). Tell the story you need to tell.” Selznick crafted a book about a child who was in love with French silent movies — “in a world where nobody watches French silent movies, especially children,” he notes — and it became The Invention of Hugo Cabret, filmed by Martin Scorsese as Hugo.
Selznick believes great children’s authors such as Sendak “have very direct connections to their psychic lives as children, and the terrors and fears and joys of being a child . . . I think many people are afraid of doing things that seem too weird or personal.”
And now, when the occasional homophobic online reviewer attacks Selznick’s charming new book, The Marvels, for depicting gay male monogamy, Selznick thinks back to Sendak’s own reaction to criticism: “I learned from Maurice that being clear and direct is always a good thing and it’s going to scare adults sometimes — not the kids . . . Knowing that Maurice always made sure to be honest continues to give me strength.”