RIP Maurice Sendak

Children's author Mauricw Sendak died at 83 last Tuesday. My main memory of his books is encountering "Where the Wild Things Are" in first or second grade. It was both disturbing and fascinating to see Max meet the huge, terrifying monsters and become their king. My Mom said she could see why i liked the book because I was a wild thing myself (a lot of kids are at that age.) Sendak loved the "wild rumpus" side of children and thought that books that portrayed them as meek and innocent were dishonest. He once received a clever illustrated letter from a young fan and sent the child a personal response complete with his own original illustration. He got a reply from the boy's mother some time later saying that her son liked the drawing so much he had eaten it. For Sendak, there could be no higher praise.