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Musings: There’s A Mystery There: The Primal Vision of Maurice Sendak by Jonathan Cott

There’s A Mystery There: The Primal Vision of Maurice Sendak by Jonathan Cott

Doubleday, 2017

ISBN-13: 978-0385540438

Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition

I love Maurice Sendak. One of my favorite books to read aloud to children, especially when reading in a storyhour, is Where The Wild Things Are. I mean, there is nothing like getting a crowd of kindergarteners to roar their terrible roars without holding back.

But there is also something that makes many people (mostly adults, I think) uneasy about his work. There are uncomfortable emotions, uncontrollable imaginations, and so much hunger in his illustrations. These are all most evident in the three books he referred to as his “trilogy”: Where the Wild Things Are, In The Night Kitchen, and Outside Over There. Of these three books, Outside Over There is probably the least well known, and also the one that came from the deepest places in Sendak’s mind and heart, as well as having broad influences from his past and present circumstances and experiences. In There’s A Mystery There, Jonathan Cott delves as far down as he can into Sendak’s psyche and casts a wide net to capture the manifold ways it expresses itself, specifically through an examination of Outside Over There. 

In a serendipitous set of circumstances, Cott met and interviewed Sendak in 1976, just as he was starting Outside Over There, and again in 1981, after receiving an advance copy of the book directly from the author, so he witnessed both the beginnings and the winding down of the process of creation for what Sendak described as “the last excavation of my soul.”

There’s A Mystery There is Cott’s attempt to go further into Sendak’s soul by exploring his past– family, childhood, and career; his obsessions and associations– the Lindbergh kidnapping, Mozart, the artists who inspired him; his many books, particularly Where The Wild Things Are, In The Night Kitchen, and Outside Over There; and Sendak’s own thoughts and comments as expressed to Cott through interviews. It goes further by including discussions of Outside Over There, specifically, with psychoanalyst Dr. Richard Gottlieb, Jungian analyst Margaret Klenck, art historian Jane Doonan, and writer, co-creator, and Sendak biographer Tony Kushner, These are all fascinating discussions, exploring the book from a variety of different angles, and from my point of view as someone who reads a lot of children’s books, reads a lot about children’s books, and loves the art of Maurice Sendak, this was very readable and eye-opening. A brief biographical sketch does not offer the fascinating window that the biographical information and commentary on Sendak’s past found in the first half of this book, so for anyone wanting to go below surface details this is a great resource. The art historian’s close examination of the book’s illustrations is very much worthwhile for someone wanting to get into the details of the art in the book.  The other discussions are interesting if you want to delve deeper into Sendak’s psyche, but an average reader may not necessarily need that level of detail.

From reading this book, I discovered new connections between Sendak and his work, and made observations that I hadn’t made previously. What I didn’t find was a definitive answer to what the book is about, what it really means, or why, despite my fascination with the book, the ending is so frustrating for me.  Rather than providing straightforward information, Cott’s writing is more of a spiral in and out, twisting around the center of what Outside Over There, giving the reader clues without closing the window to manifold worlds.

Outside Over There inspired the movie Labyrinth, and if you are looking for a satisfying ending, you probably ought to check it out. Sendak’s version continues to keep me wondering, and Cott’s writing, while it resolves some things, leaves the book still a mystery.

Recommended for students and lovers of children’s literature, picture book illustration, literary criticism, and Maurice Sendak: and for libraries serving educators and librarians.

Note: I’ve previously written about Outside Over There. If you’d like to see what I said, click here.

 

 

Frightening the Children? Worrisome Picture Books

I love reading with kids. And I especially love reading with my own kids. I admit I am guilty of reading Gordon Korman to my five year old.  There are just so many good books I want to share!

I’m not up to sharing EVERY book with them– at the ages of 5 and 7, I don’t think they’re quite ready for Goosebumps— but you’d be surprised  at some of what they gobble up. Well, maybe you wouldn’t be surprised. There are, as I said, so many good books, so many home runs! You might be surprised to find what children’s books some people think are too scary for kids to read, though (and also, what books some people consider to be children’s books. This article actually identifies The Call of the Wild as a children’s book). In this article, Jennifer Lewis chose nine books she considered to be “unintentionally terrifying.”  I can see only one, Robert Munsch’s Love You Forever, that I personally see as falling into that category. I’m not a child, though. While I haven’t read the book to my own children, they’ve had it read to them, and it hasn’t yet made them run screaming from the room. The Runaway Mummy by Michael Rex had the same creep factor for me, and I truly thought it would scare the heck out of my son, but he actually wanted to act it out with me!

The first book Lewis picked as “unintentionally terrifying”  was No, David! by David Shannon. Perhaps it’s hard to understand the charm of this book until you’ve seen the enthusiastic reaction of a classroom of energetic two and three year old boys. My son and his preschool class (almost all boys) knew this book by heart. Every single one of them completely related to David. Our copy is nearly worn out. The illustrations are similar to the ones David Shannon found in a book he had written and illustrated at nearly the same age, with the word NO on every page. Terrifying to parents, maybe… David is constantly getting into things he isn’t supposed to be getting in to… but scary to kids? Not at all.

Moving on, it’s hard to imagine how, with an entire world of children’s books to choose from, she picked Chicka Chicka Boom Boom! This is a favorite that never goes out of style. Preschoolers and kindergartners just learning the alphabet get into the jazzy rhythm and colorful illustrations, and even second and third graders aren’t “too cool”  to hear it and chant out the words– which by then, they know by heart. Alphabet mix-ups, drama, and trauma, are more funny than frightening– check out A is for Salad and AlphaOops! The Day Z Went First to see what I mean.

I have always loved Tomie de Paola. It’s true his books can evoke intense emotions– Nana Upstairs, Nana Downstairs brought me to tears, and The Clown of God is unforgettable. But it was Strega Nona that I chose as my birthday book for the school library when I was in third grade, not because it scared me, but because it’s funny and gentle in its telling, and it has a certain justice (something children appreciate). I suppose the endless pot of spaghetti might be disturbing if you’re trying to control your carbs, but the story of the apprentice who gets the food going and can’t stop it isn’t a new one– a recent version called The Golem’s Latkes (I bet you can guess what kind of food overflowed into the street in that book) recently made its way into my house. But the illustrations, and the way it’s told, make it a classic– and not one to be feared.

If these books are bothering you as an adult, it’s because you are looking at them as an adult. Children aren’t deconstructing these books. They’re getting a kick out of them. You do not have to wrap children  in cotton just because, in a book, the letters of the alphabet fell out of a tree and one of them skinned its knee.

So then we come to books that fit in a category that doesn’t quite meet the criterion that Lewis set of “unintentionally terrifying” books. Because these books are really intended to frighten and challenge children. She mentions Maurice Sendak’s Bumble-Ardy, for instance. This is the author of Outside Over There, in which a little girl’s baby sister is stolen away by goblins. While he’s no longer with us, he was no stranger to illustrating our fears. The surreal black and white illustrations of Chris Van Allsburg are magical, but not often comfortable. Jumanji is meant to unsettle readers, not reassure them. Neil Gaiman’s (and Dave McKean’s) The Wolves in the Walls is definitely intended to be a scary story. Children in these stories rise to the challenge set before them, but the journey can be a scary one.  These books are beloved by many children (particularly Jumanji and The Wolves in the Walls) although they definitely aren’t every child’s cup of tea. Knowing your kids is the best way to choose what will work for them, since even kids who are the same age can vary widely in reading interests and maturity. Naturally, use your best judgment. But I hope you won’t let your worries about what they can handle stop you from sharing great books with your kids.

What Was I Scared Of? and Other Dreadful Tales

I’ve come to see that there is often a difference between what is marketed as children’s horror and what they find truly unsettling. Horror is an atmospheric medium, so illustrations and artwork(even those you might not expect) can terrify on their own or interact with language to create a sense of dread. Following R.L. Stine’s philosophy, it can be written to be so fantastical that it’s a thrilling scare, easily separated from the real, with a billboard on it letting kids know “Hey, this is scary!” Or, it can tap into real fears, but in unreal ways (some, I am sure, that the author never imagined), as this article suggests. The comments are surprising (or maybe not). What’s even more interesting is the adult perspective on reading these books not just as children but to them. The Story of Babar, for instance, is mentioned multiple times in the comments as scary and unsettling to both children and adults reading to children because of the scene in which Babar’s mother is killed, but I don’t remember that at all. From looking at the comments, it’s clear that what inspires dread or fear is often very individual… but certain authors and books do stick out. The Velveteen Rabbit, Love You Forever, Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, Der Struwwelpeter, The Giving Tree, Curious George, The Five Chinese Brothers, and The Runaway Bunny top the list, and it seems that the works of Dr. Seuss, Maurice Sendak, and Hans Christian Andersen should be handled with care.

Here are some of the titles (not specifically listed above) that people mentioned. Did, or do, any of these disturb you or your child?

The Little Match Girl, The Little Mermaid, The Snow Queen, and The Robber Bridegroom by Hans Christian Andersen
Madeleine by Ludwig Bemelmans
The Secret Garden and A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Olivia by Ian Falconer
Are You My Mother? by P.D. Eastman
The Duel by Eugene Field
Only One Woof by James Herriott
The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling
I Stink! by Kate McMullan
Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne
Amelia Bedelia by Peggy Parrish
We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Helen Oxenbury
The Tale of Peter Rabbit and The Roly Poly Pudding by Beatrix Potter
Goodnight Gorilla by Peggy Rathmann
The Cat in the Hat, I Had Trouble Getting to Solla Sollew, and What Was I Scared Of? from The Sneetches and Other Stories by Dr. Seuss
Where the Wild Things Are, In the Night Kitchen, Outside Over There, Kenny’s Window and Higgelty, Piggelty, Pop! There Must be More to Life! by Maurice Sendak
A Bad Case of Stripes by David Shannon
The Starry Messenger by Peter Sis
Sylvester and the Magic Pebble and The Amazing Bone by William Steig
Goosebumps books by R.L. Stine
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
Jumanji by Chris Van Allsburg
The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Mama? by Jeanette Winter
The Lonely Doll by Dare Wright

If none of these fit the bill for you or the kids you know, which ones did, and why? Comment below and let me know!