In Sendak’s balanced view of childhood, the innocence of being a child also exists alongside difficult realities. This holistic perspective of childhood reflects Sendak’s own upbringing. On the one hand, he grew up in the magical New York of the 1930s and 40s, where he soaked up the thrilling stories told within his family by his father and brother, and immersed himself in films and Mickey Mouse cartoons; on the other, Sendak suffered near-death experiences with pneumonia and scarlet fever, and was terrified by the extermination of his Jewish relatives in the Holocaust. To Sendak, childhood is a bit of a mess, but its messiness is also what engages him as an artist. He finds important truths in the logic children use to cope with reality. Sendak harnesses that logic in his fantasies, using it to explore the “Other Story” of his own complicated childhood. This theme is dedicated to children’s behavior, emotions, and fantasies in Sendak’s art and the wide variety of styles with which he depicts them. Through these child characters, you can discover how Sendak explores his own memories and feelings from a child’s perspective and stays in tune with his own child-self.
“Images and Words” (3:30 mins)
Sendak explains what illustrating means to him
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