His imagination redefined children’s literature_美文

His imagination redefined children’s literature

In nineteen sixty-two he published the “Nutshell Library." These were four little books in a box measuring about seven by ten centimeters. The books are "Alligators All Around," "One Was Johnny," “Chicken Soup with Rice” and “Pierre."

"Pierre" is a funny story about a little boy who behaves badly. Every time his parents ask him a question, he gives them the same answer: "I don't care."

One day his mother said

When Pierre climbed out of bed

Good morning, darling boy, you are my only joy.

Pierre said- I don’t care!

What would you like to eat?

I don’t care!

Some lovely cream of wheat?

I don’t care!

Don’t sit backwards in your chair

I don’t care!

Then something happens to Pierre. He gets eaten by a hungry lion. But the story has a happy ending. Pierre changes his behavior when he gets reunited with his parents.

Maurice Sendak’s drawings are very expressive. His landscapes are beautifully detailed and his monsters are more loveable than they are frightening.

In a YouTube video posted by the Rosenbach Museum, Maurice Sendak talks about what it means to be an illustrator.

“An illustrator, in my own mind, and this is not a truth of any kind, is someone who so falls in love with writing, that he wishes he had written it and the closest he can get to it is illustrating it. And the next thing you learn, you have to find something unique in this book, which perhaps even the author was not entirely aware of. And that’s what you hold onto and that’s what you add to the pictures. A whole other story that you believe in, that you think is there. When you find another story in a story, that’s the story I am telling the children.”