Maurice Sendak - Nominee

"It's like I'm a receptacle, a repository for all the people I love. All I can do with them is keep them."

- Maurice Sendak

Noted for his compassionate and curmudgeonly demeanor, Maurice Sendak changed the face of children’s literature in America with his unique writing and illustration style. He maintained that, “If children are different from us, they are more spontaneous. Grown-up lives have become overlaid with dross.” Sendak was born on June 10, 1928, in Brooklyn, New York, to two Jewish parents from Poland. As a child, Sendak repeatedly fell ill and often explored his love for drawing rather than resting. He loved Mickey Mouse, American comic books and Manhattan’s bright lights. Watching the Disney movie Fantasia at a movie theater in 1940 made him want to become an illustrator. Sendak obtained his first job illustrating children’s books after meeting book publisher and editor Ursula Nordstrom at his part-time job creating window displays at F.A.O. Schwartz, a toy store in New York City . He went on to illustrate and/or write around 150 books throughout his career. He is known for his incredibly popular children’s book, Where the Wild Things Are, published in 1963. The story was so captivating because of its creepy, unnerving illustrations of monsters that one did not expect from a children’s book at the time. Additionally, he wrote and illustrated other titles such as: The Sign on Rosie’s Door (1960), The Nutshell Library (1962), In the Night Kitchen (1970), Outside Over There (1981), the HIV/AIDS crisis themed We Are All in the Dumps with Jack and Guy (1993) and Bumble-Ardy (2000). Sendak also illustrated Tony Kushner’s Holocaust-themed book Brundibar (2003). He was also an early board member of the Children’s Television Workshop when Sesame Street was in the developmental stages. Later in his life he was also a set designer for theaters, allowing him to incorporate his vision into the works of Mozart, Tchaikovsky, and Prokofiev. Sendak received several accolades throughout his life including the Caldecott Medal in 1964, the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 1970, and the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award in 2003. In 1996, he received the National Medal of Arts, presented to him by President Bill Clinton. Although Sendak was born into a Jewish family, he later became an atheist. Sendak officially came out as gay when he was 80 years old in an interview with the New York Times. He spoke openly about his experience being closeted and his fear that the American public would forsake him if they knew a gay man was writing the books their children were reading. His partner, Eugene Glynn, was a psychoanalyst who moved to Connecticut with Sendak in 1972. They were together for 50 years. Sendak passed away due to stroke-related complications at the age of 83 in 2012.