Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are

Information about the 1963 picture book and the 2009 film/DVD

Maurice Sendak's 1963 Where The Wild Things Are received the 1964 Caldecott Award, for picture book of the year.Maurice Sendak

Sendak's interview in The Believer. Nov./Dec. 2012. "I refuse to cater to the bullshit of innocence."

"Escape from Kiddiebookland. Maurice Sendak: A Tribute." PMLA 129.1 (January 2014): 119-120. Essay by Jan Susina.

Maurice Sendak died May 8, 2012.  Here is my blog post about his importance in children's literature.

Jan Susina discusses the popularity of Where the Wild Things Are book and film with R.C. McBride on WJBC Oct 19, 2009.  Link to mp3 file

Getting to Know Maurice Sendak: 1985 interview on video.

Maurice Sendak, In His Own Words: Where The Wild Things Are. Video.

Rosenbach Collection. Museum in Philadelphia

• There's a Mystery There: Sendak on Sendak exhibition.

Animated videos of Sendak's work

• "In the Night Kitchen." YouTube video of 1970 book. by Weston Woods (updated 3/2016)
• "Where the Wild Things Are." Youtube video of the popular book.  Stop action video from Weston Woods.

Rosenbach Museum & Library in Philadelphia, which has the best collection of Sendak materials.

Rosenbach Museum's DVD segment on Sendak on his work, childhood, inspiration.  YouTube. 10 min.  Sendak on what being an illustrator means.  YouTube. 3 min.  Sendak on his childhood and movies.  YouTube. 1 min.     Sendak on Images and Words. You Tube 2:25 min

Original Wild Things animated short. YouTube video 6:50 min.

Caldecott acceptance speech by Sendak (.pdf format) from his book Caledecott & Co.

Read Dave Egger's story Max At Sea, which appeared in The New Yorker, Aug. 24, 2009. Click on this link to open a .pdf document of the Max At Sea story.  OR  Click on this link to go to Max At Sea story by Dave Eggers on The New Yorker's website

Articles and promotions related to the 2009 film Where The Wild Things AreScene from Where The Wild Things Are film

• Featurette on making of Where The Wild Things Are, on imdb (mostly an interview with Sendak)
• Newsweek article "A Talk with the 'Wild Things' Creators" (Oct. 9, 2009)
• "Maurice Sendak and the Legacy of their 1963 rumpus." LA Times by Scott Timberg (Oct. 11, 2009).  "Maurice Sendak Rewrote the Rules with Wild Things" also on LA Times site by Scott Timberg (Oct. 11, 2009)
• "Where the Wild Things Weren't" by Bruce Handy in The New York Times. (Oct. 8, 2009)
• Synopsis of HBO Documentary Tell Them Anything You Want: A Portrait of Maurice Sendak by Spike Jonze (first showing Wed., Oct 14, 2009)

"A Conversation with Maurice Sendak" by Jennifer Ludden on NPR, June 4, 2005, with additional links

Where the Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak, 1963

Terrible Yellow Eyes, website devoted to other artists' renditions of Wild Things

MercuryNews article about Sendak exhibit at Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco (Sept. 3, 2009)

President Obama reading Wild Things at the 2009 Easter egg roll

Horn Book interview with Sendak. Nov./Dec. 2003 by Roger Sutton

Sendak talk at MIT. April 2003.  1 hour talk