I Want To Paint My Bathroom Blue

by Ruth Krauss, Maurice Sendak Publisher : Harper Collins Edition : 1st Condition : Very Good Binding : Hardcover Dust Jacket : Yes Signed : Yes Price : $179.95

Item Description :

Harper Collins New York n.d. (2002). First edition, thus. Signed by Maurice Sendak. Republication of children's classic. Color illust. by Maurice Sendak and very scarce hand signature of Maurice Sendak on half-title page. Very good condition with some slight bumps to the top of the jacket on the spine. Maurice Sendak comes from Brooklyn, New York. He was born in 1928, the youngest of three children. His parents were poor Polish immigrants who came to the United States before World War I. Many of the family's relatives in Poland died in the Holocaust during World War II. His family suffered greatly over their lost family members. To add to their concerns, Maurice himself was sickly as a child. His mother worried constantly about his health and safety. Maurice Sendak loved to have his father read aloud to him at night before bedtime. He didn't like school much and wasn't good at sports, but he loved to read and often asked his sister to get him books from the library. In an interview on his favorite books as a child, Maurice Sendak: A Western Canon, he had many favorites. His sister gave him his first book, Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper. Other favorites were Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses. He went to art school at the Art Students' League and he co-authored his first published book, Atomics for the Millions which was published in 1947. Maurice Sendak is a man of many talents. He designed wooden toys with his brother, did the lyrics for an animated film for television called Really Rosie which is from his books, the Nutshell Library (Carol King did the music). He has also written the words (called libretto) for the opera, Where the Wild Things Are. Sendak lives in Ridgefield, CT. Maurice Sendak of Ridgebury is generally acknowledged to be the leading visionary in children's literature today. For more than 40 years, he's written and illustrated books that have entertained children and adults alike, but have also challenged established ideas about what children's literature is and should be. The New York Times said Mr. Sendak's work "has brought a new dimension to the American children's book and helped change how people visualize childhood." His more than 80 books have sold more than seven million copies worldwide in a dozen languages. They include such classics as In the Night Kitchen, Outside Over There, and Where the Wild Things Are. His many awards include the 1964 Caldecott Medal for the most notable picture book of the year. In 1970, he became the only 20th Century American to receive the Hans Christian Andersen Award in recognition of his entire body of work. And in 1997, President Clinton awarded him a National Medal of the Arts in recognition of his contribution to the arts in America. Yet, when it first appeared in 1963, his most famous book, Where the Wild Things Are, was greeted with as much controversy as acclaim. Protective parents, teachers and librarians called the story and artwork too scary for children. Some even thought the book could be psychologically damaging because young Max's mother deserts him and he's sent to bed to confront his nightmares alone. But child psychologists said the book helped express hidden childhood fears. Born in Brooklyn in 1928 to Eastern European immigrants, Mr. Sendak spent much of his childhood in bed, suffering from a variety of illnesses. He read extensively, drew comic strips, and illustrated his older brother's stories. His father, a gifted storyteller, entertained the children with disturbing tales of the old country that often ended unhappily. "These were the stories he told us before we went to bed," Mr. Sendak said. "No wonder I'm an insomniac. I didn't know these stories were considered intensely inappropriate for children until I repeated them in school and was sent home to have my mouth washed out. Up until my generation, there was a soft innocence, a sweetness in books for children which I thought was inappropriate. It had nothing to do with my childhood or other people's as I saw it." Mr. Sendak's experience growing up as a poor Jew in Brooklyn during the Holocaust profoundly influenced his life and work. The monsters in Where the Wild Things Are were inspired by relatives who'd fled the Nazis and come to live with his family in New York. "They are my uncles and aunts, who poked us, pinched us, said absurd, patronizing things to us, took up all the room, ate up all the food," Mr. Sendak said. In his teens, Mr. Sendak studied at the Art Students League and was only 19 when he illustrated his first book, Atomics for the Millions, in 1947 (he did the book for his physics teacher in exchange for a passing grade and a small fee). When he moved to Ridgefield in 1972, Mr. Sendak had lived in New York City all his life, and had never needed a car. "I'm a 44-year-old neurotic who just learned to drive," Mr. Sendak told a Press reporter. "Maybe you should warn them that I drive a green Plymouth." Over his years here, his work has expanded into the worlds of opera and ballet; he's designed sets and costumes for several successful productions, including an opera of Where the Wild Things Are. He believes his art has always been deeply connected to the music he enjoys. "Designing for operas is as close as I can get to pretending that I'm a musician," he says. At 72, he is working on a theatrical production and a new book and, says an aide, "continues to try to understand and express the meaning of childhood, his and ours."



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