In this Sept. 6 2011 file photo, children's book author Maurice Sendak is photographed doing an interview at his home in Ridgefield, Conn. Sendak, author of the popular children's book "Where the Wild Things Are," died, Tuesday, May 8, 2012 at Danbury Hospital in Danbury, Conn. He was 83. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, file)
Maurice Sendak, author and illustrator of famous children’s book “Where the Wild Things Are,” died early Tuesday.
advertisement
Sendak, who was 83, died at a hospital in Danbury, Conn. His caretaker Lynn Caponera told The Associated Press that he had a stroke on Friday.
The author was known for showing the dark side of childhood in his book. He said that it was as a result of his growing up during the Holocaust. His Polish-American parents were the only family members to move to the U.S., and the rest of his family was killed in Europe.
“In plain terms, a child is a complicated creature who can drive you crazy,” Sendak told the Associated Press in 2009. “There’s cruelty to childhood, there’s anger.”
“Where the Wild Things Are,” a book about a boy named Max who goes on a journey through his imagination after he is sent to bed without supper, earned Sendak a Caldecott Medal for the best children’s book of 1964. In 2009, director Spike Jonez turned the book into a movie.
Other children’s book by Sendak include “In the Night Kitchen” and “Outside Over There.”
Sendak received the international Hans Christian Andersen medal for illustration in 1970, and won the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award from the American Library Association in 1983. He was awarded a National Medal of the Arts by President Clinton in 1996 for his works.
In September 2011 he published “Bumble-Ardy,” the first picture book where he produced both text and illustrations for in 30 years. “My Brother’s Book,” a poem and picture book inspired by Sendak’s late brother, Jack, is scheduled to be published posthumously next February.
Sendak never had children of his own, and lived with his partner, Eugene Glynn for 50 years until Glynn died of lung cancer in 2007.
With Associated Press
