e Night Kitchen and Zlateh the Goat, is a man who continues following his creative visions. His classic work, Where the Wild Things Are, is still one of the 10 best-selling children's books of all time.
His Motivation for Producing Children's Literature
The closest he has ever come to explaining the "why" of focusing on children's literature came in his speech at Princeton referred to above, when he posited that "Children are smarter than we give them credit for these days. They know more than what parents are willing to admit that they know" (Grande, 2000).
He could very well be describing himself as a child. At the Jewish Cultural Awards banquet in 1998, Sendak enthralled the audience with memories of his childhood. As he recalled, there was no escape and he "resented those faraway dead Jews. At my bar mitzvah, in 1941, I watched my parents leave those shtetl relatives who would never be bar mitzvahed" (Sendak, 1998, Online).
As a child, he grew up living with the desolate conclusion (especially for a nine-year-old) that
we Jews were good for nothing but dying. When I was only two, and terrified that the Lindbergh baby kidnapper would steal me away, my Uncle Joe laughed and asked me why anybody would kidnap a poor Jewish boy? I never forgave him. If the Wild Things, those wild chayahs are my much-abused relatives, the ugliest of them all is my Uncle Joe (Sendak, 1998, Online).
He then regaled the audience with memories of h
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