Maurice Sendak died this week. Everyone remembers him for the books he wrote, Where the Wild Things Are, and The Night Kitchen, but I never read those books. I grew up reading the books he illustrated; namely the Little Bearbooks, and No Fighting, No Bitingby Else Holmelund Minarik. The illustrations that Maurice Sendak did for those books made the character of Little Bear as real to me as any if he were one of my friends. In fact, I used to think that Mother Bear was my Oma, and used to wish that Little Bear, Cat, Chicken and the baby alligator from No Fighting, No Biting would come and play with me (next to Little Bear, I loved Chicken best).
I was four when I got my first Little Bear book. I still have these books in my personal library in hardback, with covers still intact. The illustrations charm me as much today as they did when I was a kid. Those books were the first I remember reading, and I believe they had a huge impact on my future preferences as a reader. To this day, I’m a sucker for fantasy tales told from a beast’s POV.
Thank you, Mr. Sendak.
