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Maurice Sendak on Childhood and the Power of Story

This is a wonderful short video interview of Maurice Sendak on childhood and children’s stories. While he wasn’t specifically addressing the value of scary stories for children, he says, and I think this is very true,

I think there’s something barbaric in children and it’s missing in lots of books for them because we don’t like to think of it. We want them to be happy.

My parents were immigrants, and they didn’t know they should clean the stories up for us. We heard horrible horrible stories and we absolutely loved them.

We don’t like to think it, or remember it ourselves, but childhood can be a frightening time. And stories help us all, including children, through frightening times. Take five minutes out of your day to listen to what Mr. Sendak has to say. It will be worth your while.

 

Gris Grimly’s Frankenstein

It’s so unfair that I just found out about this. Gris Grimly, illustrator of  two very creepy books of Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories (Tales of Death and Dementia and Tales of Mystery and Madness (reviewed here), now has an illustrated version of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, just out since August 27.  Grimly was interviewed by Publisher’s Weekly about the process of re-creating, designing, and illustrating Frankenstein, a story which has been adapted and presented in many different ways (it’s a really interesting interview, and here is a link so you can check it out for yourself). One of the things I learned from reading it was that Grimly had blogged about the process as he worked through the book, created illustrations, got frustrated, made changes, and pulled it all together. For four years. How I missed knowing that a brilliant illustrator of both children’s and YA books was working on, and blogging about, this fantastic project for FOUR YEARS is crazy! I so wish the publisher had contacted us and offered a copy to us for review. Anyway, the blog he wrote as he was creating this book is a pretty neat look into the mind of an illustrator who is serious about respecting the author’s intent while also making the story his own, and here is a link so you can visit there. I loved Kenneth Oppell’s prequel to the Frankenstein story, This Dark Endeavor (reviewed here), which (at least in the Kindle version) was paired with the original novel, and is intriguing and gripping enough to motivate some kids into attempting the original. However, from what he says, Grimly takes what appears to be a much more direct, visual, and fantastic approach to the story, one that may draw in an entirely different audience of YA readers. But mainly, right now, I’m just bummed that, with the book four years in the making, and Grimly publicly blogging about it, that I didn’t know about it until now. And if you didn’t know about it before, and you see just the bits he shows on his blog,  I suspect you’ll want to know more, too.

Tell-Tale Art– Spooky Illustrations with the Power to Change Lives

How cool is this? I learned about it from a tweet from Jon Scieszka, the mind behind Guys Read. All kinds of well known children’s book illustrators are participating in an art auction that you’ll want to be sure to check out, called Tell Tale Art. It’s all original spooky art from these illustrators, and if you’ve ever picked up a children’s picture book some of these names ought to sound familiar. Maybe you’ve heard of Lane Smith, David Shannon, Brett Helquist, Mo Willems, Paul O. Zelinsky, Dav Pilkey, Adam Rex, or Tony DiTerlizzi? All of them have donated their own scary illustrations to this auction, which is a fundraiser for an organization called 826NYC.

826nyc.org is a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting students ages 6-18 with their creative and expository writing skills, and to helping teachers inspire their students to write, structured around the belief that great leaps in learning can happen with one-on-one attention and that strong writing skills are fundamental to future success. With this in mind we provide free drop-in tutoring, field trips, after-school workshops, in-schools tutoring, help for English language learners, and assistance with student publications, intended to ultimately strengthen each student’s power to express ideas effectively, creatively, confidently, and in his or her individual voice (Most of that is straight from their mission statement)

Even if you can’t afford to participate, go look! It’s a great opportunity to see what children’s authors and illustrators can do with a spooky theme.