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Looking Back On 'Wild Things' With Maurice Sendak

Fresh Air
Published October 23, 2009 at 1:44 PM EDT
<em>Time</em> magazine has said, "For [Maurice] Sendak, visiting the land of the very young is not something that requires a visa. He is a permanent citizen."
Spencer Platt
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Time magazine has said, "For [Maurice] Sendak, visiting the land of the very young is not something that requires a visa. He is a permanent citizen."

Author and illustrator Maurice Sendak's classic children's book Where the Wild Things Are is a perennial favorite.

It won the Caldecott Medal as the "most distinguished picture book of the year" in 1964, and was adapted into an opera two decades later. (Sendak earned his stripes as a designer on the opera production, working on the sets and costumes for the premiere production.) Now, Where The Wild Things Are comes to the big screen, directed by Spike Jonze.

Sendak's other children's books include In The Night Kitchen and Outside Over There.

This broadcast includes excerpts from 1986, 1993, and 2003.

Copyright 2024 Fresh Air. To see more, visit Fresh Air.

Corrected: March 19, 2024 at 12:00 AM EDT
An earlier version of this story misstated the name of Maurice Sendak's book, Outside Over There, as Inside Over There.