Maurice Sendak the Author

Maurice Bernard Sendak, an award winning source and illustrator was born on June 10, 1928 in Brooklyn, newfangled York to Philip Sendak and Sadie Schindler, Polish immigrants from sm solely Jewish villages outside Warsaw who came to the joined States before World War I. Sendak, the unexampledest child, a bulky with his sister Natalie, and brother Jack grew up in a poor section of Brooklyn.Sendak was sickly in his early years. He suffered from measles, double pneumonia, and scarlet fever among the ages of two and four and was b arly allowed outside to play. He spent a great deal of his childhood at home. To pass the time, he drew pictures and read comic books. His father was a wonderful storyteller, and Maurice grew up enjoying his fathers imaginative tales and gaining a lifelong appreciation for books.His sister gave him his first book, Mark Twains The Prince and the Pauper. As a young adult, he identicald great adventure stories such as Typee and Moby Dick by Herman Melville. Other favorites were Bret Hartes little story, The Luck of Roaring Camp and Robert Louis Stevensons A Childs Garden of Verses.Young Sendak didnt like school much. He was obese, roundtimes stammered and wasnt cracking at sports but excelled in his art classes. At home, he and his brother Jack made up their own storybooks by combining newspaper photographs or comic strip segments with briefs they made of family members. Maurice and his brother some(prenominal) inherited their fathers storytelling gift.At age twelve, Sendak with his family saw Walt Disneys Fantasia, which had influenced him to become a cartoonist. They in addition went to the local anaesthetic movie houses and occasionally his older sister would take him to Manhattan to see movies at the Roxy or Radio metropolis Music Hall. The 1930s films, including Busby Berkeley musicals and Laurel and Hardy comedies, had a profound influence on some of his illustrations.The World War II influenced Sendaks view of the world a s a dark and frightening place. His relatives died in the Holocaust Natalies fianc was killed and Jack was stationed in the Pacific. Sendak spent the war years in high school, working on the school yearbook, literary magazine, and newspaper. While still in high school, he began his work as illustrator for All-American Comics, drawing background details for the Mutt and Jeff comic strip. At nineteen, he illustrated for his high school biology teachers book, Atomics for the Millions create in 1947.In 1948, Sendak and his brother Jack, created models for six wooden mechanical toys in the style of German eighteenth-century lever-operated toys. He did the film and carving, Jack engineered the toys, and Natalie sewed the costumes. The boys took the models to the F.A.O. Schwartz, a famous toy store in New York, where the prototypes were admired. They got turned bring down because the toys were considered too expensive to produce but the window-display director was impressed with Sendaks talent and hired him as a window dresser.He continued working there for four years while taking night classes at the New York Art Students League. He took classes in oil painting, life drawing, and composition. He also spent time in the childrens book department studying the great nineteenth-century illustrators such as George Cruikshank, Walter Crane, and Randolph Caldecott as well as the new postwar European illustrators, Hans Fischer, Felix Hoffmann, and Alois Carigiet.While at Schwartz, Sendak met Ursula Nordstrom, the childrens book editor at harpist and Brothers. He was offered to illustrate his first book, Marcel Aymes The Wonderful Farm (1951) that he did when he was twenty-three. Nordstrom arranged Sendaks first great success as the illustrator for. Ruth Krausss award winning A sand trap Is to Dig (1952). Sendak quit his full time job at Schwartz,move into an apartment in Greenwich Village, and become a freelance illustrator.By the early 1960s, Sendak had become one of t he most expressive and interesting illustrators inthe business. The publication of his book, Where the manic Things are in 1963 brought him internationalacclaim and a place among the worlds great illustrators, though the books portrayals of fanged monstersconcerned critics saying that the book was too shivery for sensitive children.Just as Sendak was gaining success, tragedy struck. In 1967, he learned that his mother had developed cancer, he suffered a major coronary attack, and his beloved dog Jenny died. In spite of his troubles, he completed In the Night Kitchen in 1970, which generated more controversy for presenting pictures of a young boy innocently prancing naked by means of the story. This book regularly appears on the American Library Associations list of frequently challenged and banned books.Twenty years later, with Were all in the Dumps with Jack and Guy (1993), Sendak delivered another jolt. This time the troubling storyline revolved approximately a kidnapped black baby and two white homeless men. more or less critics argued that the illustrations were nightmarish and too strong. Some people felt that his stories were too dark and disturbing for children. But the majority view was that Sendak, through his work, had pioneered a completely new way of writing and illustrating for, and about, children.Over the years he has produced a number of beloved classics, both(prenominal) as a writer and as an illustrator. His works also cover a broad range, not only in subject matter, but also in style and tone, from nursery rhyme stories, like Hector The Protector and As I Went Over The Water, to concept books, like Alligators All Around Us and the marvelous Chicken Soup With Rice. As an illustrator, his projects have included Else Holmelund Minariks Little Bear, the Newbery winners Wheel on the instill and The House of Sixty Fathers with Meindert DeJong, and illustrations of works by Herman Melville (Pierre) and George MacDonald (Light Princess and Go lden Key).In 1980, Sendak began to develop productions of opera and ballet for stage and television. He produced an animated TV production based on his work entitled Really Rosie, featuring Carole King, which was broadcast in 1975. He also designs sets and costumes, and even writes librettos. He was invited to design the sets and costumes for the Houston Grand Operas production of Mozarts The Magic Flute. This began a long collaboration, which included several works such as Sergei Prokofievs The Love for Three Oranges and Leos Janaceks The finesse Little Vixen, Los Angeles County Music Centers 1990 production of Mozarts Idomeneo, the award-winning Pacific Northwest Ballet production of Tchaikovskys The Nutcracker and Humperdincks Hansel And Gretel.In the 1990s, Sendak approached playwright Tony Kushner to write a new English version of the Czech composer Hans Krsas childrens opera Brundibar. Kushner wrote the text for Sendaks illustrated book of the same name, published in 2003. Th e book was named one of the New York Times Book Reviews 10 Best Illustrated Books of that year. In 2003, Chicago Opera Theatre produced Sendak and Kushners adaptation of Brundibar. In 2005 Berkeley Reparatory Theatre, in collaboration with Yale Reparatory Theater and Broadways New Victory Theater, produced a substantially reworked version of the Sendak-Kushner adaptation.Sendak, whos been called the Picasso of childrens books, has illustrated or written and illustrated over 90 books since 1951 and have garnered so many awards. He received the 1964 Caldecott Medal for Where the Wild Things Are and the Hans Christian Andersen International Medal in 1970 for his body of childrens book illustration. He was the recipient of the American Book Award in 1982 for Outside Over There. He also received in 1983 the Laura Ingalls chaotic Award for his contributions to childrens literature. In 1996, President Bill Clinton honored Sendak with the National Medal of Arts. In 2003, Maurice Sendak and Austrian reservoir Christine Noestlinger shared the first Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award for Literature given by the Swedish government.Sendak, now seventy-eight, has been a major force in the evolution of childrens literature. He is considered by many critics and scholars to be the first workman to deal openly with the emotions of children in his drawings both in books and on the stage, in his opera and ballet sets and costumes. This abilityto accurately depict raw emotion is what makes him so appealing to children.ReferencesKennedy, E. The Artistry and Influence of Maurice Sendak. Your Guide to Childrens Books. RetrievedOctober 1, 2006 from http//childrensbooks.about.com/cs/authorsillustrato/a/sendakartistry.htmMaurice Sendak. Encyclopedia Britannica (2006). Retrieved September29, 2006, from Britannica ConciseEncyclopedia http//concise.britannica.com/ebc/article-9378228/Maurice-SendakMaurice Sendak.Maurice Sendak. Encyclopedia of World Biography (2005). Retrieved September 25, 2006, fromhttp//www.bookrags.com/biography/maurice-sendak/Mitchell, G. Biography of Maurice Sendak. play off the Writers. Retrieved September 25, 2006, from http//www.barnesandnoble.com/writers/writerdetails.asp?z=y&cid=90225