Unruly like his famous character, Max, who sailed away to the land of Where the Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak refused to conform to a world that encouraged conformity. In doing so, he opened generations of young readers' eyes into the unknown and to imagine their wildest adventures.
Mr. Sendak is now onto new adventures. He died on May 8 in Danbury Hospital near his home in Ridgefield, Connecticut. The cause was complications from a stroke he suffered on May 4, his friend and caretaker Lynn Caponera and longtime editor Michael di Capua, told the Los Angeles Times and New York Times , respectively. He was 83.
Mr. Sendak, who was gay, was preceded in death by his longtime partner, Eugene Glynn, a child psychiatrist, who died of cancer in 2007. He had no immediate surviving family members, according to multiple media sources.
Mr. Sendak came out as gay in a 2008 NY Times interview.
"His gay identity was something that was not really discussed or he didn't promote, but he didn't hide it. He certainly didn't integrate it into his work, but what I think he did integrate into his work was understanding of diversity and an understanding of difference and an understanding of surviving," said Connie Wolf, the out director of the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford.
Wolf oversaw the Contemporary Jewish Museum's 2009 exhibit, There's a Mystery There: Sendak on Sendak, as the former director of the San Francisco museum.
Martin and Shelli Rawlings-Fein, bisexual parents of two children, weren't surprised he was gay, but they were saddened that he wasn't more public about his relationship.
"I felt sad that so many gay youth may not have been aware of his being gay and how much of a role model he might have been for them," wrote Shelli Rawlings-Fein in an email.
The award-winning author and illustrator, probably best known for Where the Wild Things Are, published in 1963, was also a collaborator on films, operas, plays, and television. Yet, the unruly Max and his wild beastly friends in Wild Things changed the world of children's literature during Mr. Sendak's more than 60-year career.
Max's adventures to the land of the wild things after he was sent to his room without supper became one of the 10 bestselling children's books of all time, reported the LA Times. It also dominated the NY Times' 50-year-old annual best-illustrated children's book list and inspired films, operas, and plays.
Twenty-two of Mr. Sendak's books also made appearances on that very list as books of the year.
He followed Wild Things, with In the Night Kitchen, Outside Over There, The Sign on Rosie's Door, Higglety Pigglety Pop! , and The Nutshell Library, four tiny volumes included in a box set: Alligators All Around , Chicken Soup with Rice , One Was Johnny, and Pierre.
In his 80s, he was still publishing with the recently released Bumble-Ardy, his first book in 30 years, and his forthcoming, My Brother's Book , scheduled for release in February.
Mr. Sendak bristled at the label of being a "children's author and illustrator" as it was never a goal or anything he knew how to do, he said in interviews. Perhaps because he was more than simply an illustrator and writer, his influence and work crossed nearly all creative platforms of his time.
The darkest moments of the 20th century and his own childhood sickliness were the backdrops of his upbringing. Born Maurice Bernard Sendak, the youngest of three siblings, into a Jewish family in Brooklyn, New York on June 10, 1928, his life was shaped by the Holocaust that wiped out his European relatives and the Lindbergh kidnapping in 1932. He found inspiration and his life passion in comic books and Walt Disney.
In 1990, Mr. Sendak he helped start the Night Kitchen Theatre, a national children's theater group, and he was a mentor to young children's writers and illustrators, according to the New York Times.
Mr. Sendak said he didn't know why his "needle was stuck in childhood" but he guessed "that's where my heart is," in an interview, Sendak on Death (and Life) from the Rosenbach Museum and Library in Philadelphia, a repository for his works, that was rebroadcast on the Lambda Literary Foundation's website.
"Everything was ordinary, but yet enticing and exciting and bewildering. The magic of childhood, the estrangement of a childhood, the uniqueness that makes us see things that other people don't see," he said about his work in an interview, TateShots: Maurice Sendak.
Similar to Walt Disney, who originated with darker themes before becoming sugar coated, Mr. Sendak's creations were an amalgam of darkness, shades of gray, and light. Mr. Sendak was humbly a realist who didn't believe in childhood, but perhaps most important, honest. That's what he believed set him apart from other artists.
"I was more honest than anybody," he said about his work in the interview reflecting upon death and his life. "In the discussion of children, the lives of children, the fantasies of children, and the language of children I said anything I wanted because I don't believe in children. I don't believe in childhood. I don't believe in the demarcation, 'You mustn't tell them that.' Tell them anything you want just tell them if it's true."
His work was criticized and at times he faced attempts of censorship. But for generations of children his books resonated.
"His honesty about the less-than-perfect sides of childhood in Where the Wild Things Are spoke to me the most. I certainly can resonate with the desire to go out and have wild adventures while also being able to return home to a safe place," Shelli Rawlings-Fein wrote.
But more importantly the parents appreciated Sendak's approach to children.
"It taught [Sadie, their daughter] that even if she got really mad, she could still come to the table and have dinner waiting. That is an important thing to talk about ... to let them know that there is nothing that they could do to stop that parental loving relationship," wrote Martin Rawlings-Fein in a separate email.
"His books are a light unto the world, even if they are dark," he added.
Wolf also praised Mr. Sendak's work.
"He just allows you your imagination to run wild," she said. "It's not just kids who need their imagination to be triggered and to be excited, adults need it, too, to be creative and to think differently about how you see things. Monsters lurk everywhere and that is something both charming and inspiring."