Maurice Sendak, Ruth Krauss, and Childhood Philip Nel Max Has His Roots in Ruth Krauss

112 Maurice Sendak: A Tribute [ PMLA

Wild Things, I Think I Love You: Maurice Sendak, Ruth Krauss, and Childhood philip nel Max has his roots in Ruth Krauss. You know, her “It Freed Me”: What Maurice Sendak phrase that kids were allowed to be as cruel and ma- Learned from Ruth Krauss niacal as she knew they were. Studying them at Bank Street, she knew what monstrosities children are. [T] he series of books Ruth [Krauss] and I collaborated —Maurice Sendak, telephone interview (2001) on, eight in all . . . permanently inluenced my talent, developed my taste, made me hungry for the best. —Maurice Sendak, “Ruth Krauss and Me: Sendak’s work creates a Rorschach test for A Very Special Partnership” (1994) theories theories methodologies and critics, who inevitably feel compelled to ex- plain what his books tell us about what “the child” is like, can understand, must fear, In an ot- quoted remark (serving, e.g., as an will enjoy. This is because his books chal- epigraph of Neil Gaiman’s recent novel, he lenge people’s assumptions about what chil- Ocean at the End of the Lane), Maurice Sen- dren’s literature is or should be. As John dak observed, “In reality, childhood is deep Cech eloquently notes, Sendak’s work has and rich. It’s vital, mysterious, and profound. addressed subjects considered taboo for I remember my own childhood vividly. I knew children’s books: “explosive anger, frustra- terrible things . . . but I mustn’t let adults tion, the polymorphous realm of dream and know I knew. . . . It would scare them” (Spie- psychosexual fantasy, intense sibling rivalry, gelman and Sendak). This comment about existential angst, death” (7). Sendak’s acute “vital, mysterious” childhood appears in the understanding and vivid evocation of the 27 September 1993 New Yorker, the sole issue emotional landscape of childhood tend to of that magazine to feature a cover by Sendak. produce an emotional response in readers. In On it he has drawn homeless children from an efort to contain that response, critics— his recent book, We Are All in the Dumps with including Bruno Bettelheim, Maria Tatar, Jack and Guy (1993), two of whom draw com- Geraldine DeLuca, Jennifer R. Waller, and fort from Ruth Krauss’s books. A boy uses A Kenneth Kidd—try to place Sendak in one Hole Is to Dig as a pillow. Standing beneath a category or another, oten by trying to draw makeshit shelter is a girl with Krauss’s dark boundaries around childhood and his repre- curly hair. She is holding a copy of Krauss’s sentations of it. I Can Fly. Her eyes are closed, as if she is The tendency to discover one’s preoc- dreaming of flying. Krauss had died two cupations in a text seems especially true in months earlier, at the age of ninety- one. analyses of Sendak. I mention this, irst, to It’s apt that Sendak should talk about his acknowledge my own culpability, as Ruth sense of childhood in the pages behind this Krauss’s biographer, writing in this essay image because his irst ictional children come about her inluence on Sendak’s understand- from Brooklyn, by way of Ruth Krauss. In ing of childhood. Second, there are good 1951 she had gathered material for A Hole Is reasons that scholars of children’s literature to Dig, a book of children’s deinitions: “Mud in general and of Sendak in particular ind is to jump in”; “A whistle is to make people it hard to avoid their afective relations with jump”; and “Rugs are so dogs have napkins.” the work. Though A Hole Is to Dig would become the

© 2014 philip nel PMLA 129.1 (2014), published by the Modern Language Association of America 129.1 ] Maurice Sendak: A Tribute 113 most inluential book written entirely in chil- ing from her, Sendak based his protagonists and methodologies theories dren’s words, initially no illustrator thought on real children. In the irst three books he it could become a book at all. Fortunately, both wrote and illustrated, Kenny, in Kenny’s Krauss’s editor, Harper and Brothers’ Ursula Window (1956), originates from himself and Nordstrom, believed in the project and in from the therapist Dorothy W. Baruch’s case Maurice Sendak, then a twenty-three- year- history One Little Boy (1952), and a Brooklyn old F. A. O. Schwarz window display artist. kid named Rosie inspired Martin in Very Far hus began what Sendak considered his ap- Away (1957) and the title character of The prenticeship in the world of children’s books. Sign on Rosie’s Door (1960 [Kidd 119; Sendak, Beginning with his work on A Hole Is to Caldecott 181]). Dig, he spent weekends in Connecticut with More important, working with Krauss Krauss and her husband, Crockett Johnson, affirmed Sendak’s impulse to draw on his both of whom, he said, “became my week- own childhood experiences and inspired end parents and took on the job of shaping him to give voice to the fears, joys, anxieties, me into an artist” (Nel 124). When A Hole Is anger, and yearnings of very young chil- to Dig became a popular success, Sendak quit dren. Observing Ruth also helped liberate his job at F. A. O. Schwarz, becoming a full- him, emotionally: “She taught me how to say time freelance illustrator. During the 1950s ‘Fuck you.’ I never said things like that until he illustrated as many as nine books a year. Ruth said them, and she said them with such Eight of those were by Ruth Krauss. For their a joie de vivre. But it’s not arbitrary. . . . It second collaboration, A Very Special House was that it freed me” (Telephone interview). (1953), he won his irst Caldecott Honor. he children in the Sendak- illustrated Krauss A Very Special House is in some ways an books and in his own books don’t curse, but early rehearsal for Where the Wild Things they do use language forcefully and freely. Are. Both books feature an unruly boy who What children lack in size, they can make imaginatively transforms domestic space, as up in volume. Max tames the Wild Things George Bodmer notes (181). Both books also by shouting, “be still!” Just before landing have a protagonist whom Sendak has identi- in the night kitchen, Mickey shouts, “quiet fied with Ruth Krauss. He said that A Very down there!” (Where and In). Like Krauss’s Special House “perfectly simulates Ruth’s ictive children, Sendak’s are emotionally lib- voice. . . . If I open that book, her voice will erated people. laugh out to me” (“Ruth Krauss” 289). He so he third and inal important inluence of associated the book with her that he brought Krauss was versatility. hough Max has come Max back as a character when in 2005 he re- to symbolize the Sendakian child, there is no illustrated her 1948 book Bears, dedicating it single Sendakian child, no uniied-ield theory to “Ruth and Dave” (Crockett Johnson’s given of childhood that emerges from his work. he name was Dave). hese books represent a key experimentation and energy are part of what lesson from Sendak’s apprenticeship with nurtured Sendak’s artistic lexibility (Bodmer Krauss: children’s books can and should con- 183), but so are the many types of children vey some of the wildness of childhood. (observed in real life) and the fact that both he second vital lesson Sendak learned Krauss and Nordstrom required him to work from Krauss was the idea of basing his char- in diferent styles: “Change and change and acters on real children. With A Hole Is to change it, change the form, change the form, Dig, Krauss began using children’s words in beat the material until you make it scream but her work. She sat with children, listened to give to you what it’s all about. Don’t assume them, and wrote their stories down. Learn- anything” (Telephone interview). 114 Maurice Sendak: A Tribute [ PMLA

“On Familiar Terms with Disrupting In his works Sendak explores that fear Emotions”: Affective Relations with and anxiety, documenting the sharp, turbu- Children’s Books lent, powerful feelings of early childhood. I don’t write for children. . . . I write, and some- Told that his books do not reassure readers, body says, “hat’s for children.” I didn’t set out to Sendak was unapologetic. He oten recounted make children happy, or make life better for them, the story of a mother who said, “I’ve read or make life easier for them. Where the Wild hings Are ten times to my lit- —Maurice Sendak to Stephen Colbert, tle girl, and she screams every time.” He asks “Grim Colberty Tales” (2012) why she keeps reading the book to her daugh- ter. he mother responds, “But it’s a Caldecott Sendak’s versatility—something to which he book, she ought to like it.” Sendak thinks this theories theories methodologies and consciously drew attention, oten mentioning attitude is ridiculous: “If a kid doesn’t like a the inluences in his ever- expanding literary book, throw it away” (Lanes 106). However, and artistic pantheon—can distract critics’ as Maria Tatar points out, “Sendak seems un- attention from the fact that “emotional truth” wittingly to acknowledge adult control even was more important than style (Marcus 19). as he repudiates it” (225). She makes an excel- Intertextuality is a comfortable area for crit- lent point. While some children might be able ics; admitting that emotions inform our re- to toss Where the Wild hings Are aside, small sponses is less so. people do not always have that power. To be a Except in children’s literature criticism, child is to be subject to rules that you do not where the personal has a distinctive and always understand, to be compelled to sufer useful role. This is not to ignore the many the whims of the grown- ups. misuses of autobiography in writings about Readers respond emotionally to Sen- children’s literature: self-indulgence, indif- dak’s work because it addresses what most ference to or ignorance of scholarship, and, adults prefer not to see in a children’s book of course, substituting a speciic child or one’s and what young readers already know all too own “inner child” for All Children. But there well: children’s inherent vulnerability. In a is a special place for the personal in writing misguided effort to protect overly sensitive about children’s literature because books for children, adults understandably prefer to see the young remind us of that immersive expe- childhood represented as a place of safety. It rience of childhood reading—the sense of be- is oten anything but. As Sendak observed in ing transported to another world, feeling the his eulogy for Krauss, “Those kids so bril- emotional contours of the narrative, and not liantly celebrated, loved, and congratulated analyzing. Further, as Martha C. Nussbaum in Krauss book after Krauss book are, in argues, “the childhood history of emotions truth, powerless little tots of no special inter- shapes adult emotional life” (230). Sendak’s est to any group, political or otherwise.” So, narrative artwork enters into that early his- he added, “[c]hildren are stoical and sufer si- tory, reviving its affective power in adult lently. What choice do they have? We kiddie- readers and allowing child readers a space book folk oddly share their humiliation” in which to explore their emotional lives. (“Ruth Krauss” 289). As Sendak observed in his Caldecott accep- he “we” in that last sentence underscores tance speech for Where the Wild hings Are, why scholars of children’s literature respond “[F] rom their earliest years, children live on so intensely to Sendak. He used his status familiar terms with disrupting emotions, . . . as a children’s book writer to make himself [and] fear and anxiety are an intrinsic part of into a defender of children’s literature and their everyday lives” (Caldecott 151). of the complexity of children’s lives. As the 129.1 ] Maurice Sendak: A Tribute 115

preeminent picture- book creator of the twen- WORKS CITED and methodologies theories tieth century, Sendak relished this role, and Bettelheim, Bruno. “he Care and Feeding of Monsters.” aicionados of picture books were delighted to Ladies’ Home Journal Mar. 1969: 48. Print. have such a spokesperson in their camp. Bodmer, George. “Ruth Krauss and Maurice Sendak’s As a result, Sendak’s passing in May 2012 Early Illustration.” Children’s Literature Association was like a death in the family. He was our Quarterly 11.4 (1986–87): 180–83. Print. most potent advocate and most astute critic- Cech, John. Angels and Wild hings: he Archetypal Poet- ics of Maurice Sendak. 1995. University Park: Penn- practitioner. Relecting on his artistic legacy, sylvania State UP, 2013. Print. he told Spike Jonze: DeLuca, Geraldine. “Exploring the Levels of Childhood: he Allegorical Sensibility of Maurice Sendak.” Chil- I think what I’ve ofered was diferent—but dren’s Literature 12 (1984): 3–24. Print. not because I drew better than anybody Gaiman, Neil. The Ocean at the End of the Lane. New or wrote better than anybody, but because York: Morrow, 2013. Print. I was more honest than anybody. . . . I said Kidd, Kenneth B. Freud in Oz: At the Intersections of Psy- choanalysis and Children’s Literature. Minneapolis: U anything I wanted. Because I don’t believe of Minnesota P, 2011. Print. in children. I don’t believe in childhood. I Krauss, Ruth. Bears. Illus. Phyllis Rowand. New York: don’t believe that there’s demarcation—“you Harper, 1948. N. pag. Print. mustn’t tell them that.” You can tell them ——— . Bears. Illus. Maurice Sendak. New York: Harper, anything you want. . . . If it’s true, you tell 2005. N. pag. Print. them. . . . Why is my needle stuck in child- ——— . A Hole Is to Dig. Illus. Maurice Sendak. 1952. New hood? I don’t know. I guess that’s where my York: Trophy- Harper, 1989. N. pag. Print. heart is. (Tell hem) ——— . I Can Fly. Illus. Mary Blair. 1951. Racine: Western, 1979. N. pag. Print. ——— . A Very Special House. Illus. Maurice Sendak. 1953. His work is more complex and nuanced than New York: Harper, 1981. N. pag. Print. this self- assessment conveys, and he did be- Lanes, Selma G. he Art of Maurice Sendak. 1980. New lieve that children deserve a childhood with York: Abradale–Abrams, 1993. Print. some protection from the cruelties and indif- Marcus, Leonard S., ed. Maurice Sendak: A Celebration ference of the adult world. However, he also of the Artist and His Work. New York: Abrams, 2013. Print. understood that they live in that adult world Nel, Philip. Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss: How an and thus can never be fully protected from it. Unlikely Couple Found Love, Dodged the FBI, and Trying to preserve children’s innocence only Transformed Children’s Literature. Jackson: UP of leaves them more vulnerable. Better to pre- Mississippi, 2012. Print. pare children with truths. An artist with his Nussbaum, Martha C. Upheavals of hought: he Intel- ligence of Emotions. New York: Cambridge UP, 2001. heart “stuck in childhood,” Sendak told the Print. truth about the leeting, powerful, and varied Sendak, Maurice. Caldecott & Co.: Notes on Books and experience of being young. In so doing, he ex- Pictures. 1988. New York: Noonday, 1990. Print. panded the range of childhood emotions that ——— . C o v e r . New Yorker 27 Sept. 1993. Print. could be represented in children’s literature, ———. “Grim Colberty Tales with Maurice Sendak Pt. 1.” Colbert Nation. Comedy Partners, 24 Jan. 2012. Web. and he won the afection of those who read, 1 Oct. 2013. write, or study it. ——— . In the Night Kitchen. 1970. New York: Harper, 1995. N. pag. Print. ——— . Kenny’s Window. 1956. New York: Harper, 1984. N. pag. Print. ———. “Ruth Krauss and Me: A Very Special Partner- NOTE ship.” Horn Book Magazine 70.3 (1994): 286–90. Print. hanks to Karin Westman for her incisive editing and ——— . he Sign on Rosie’s Door. 1960. New York: Harper, cogent suggestions. 1988. Print. 116 Maurice Sendak: A Tribute [ PMLA

———. Telephone interview. 22 June 2001. Spiegelman, Art, and Maurice Sendak. “In the Dumps.” ——— . Tell hem Anything You Want: A Portrait of Mau- New Yorker 27 Sept. 1993: 80–81. Print. rice Sendak. Dir. Lance Bangs and Spike Jonze. HBO, Tatar, Maria. “Wilhelm Grimm/ Maurice Sendak: Dear 2009. DVD. Mili and the Literary Culture of Childhood.” he Re- ——— . Very Far Away. 1957. New York: Harper, 1985. ception of Grimms’ Fairy Tales: Responses, Reactions, Print. Revisions. Ed. Donald Haase. Detroit: Wayne State ——— . We Are All in the Dumps with Jack and Guy. New UP, 1993. 207–29. Print. York: Harper, 1993. N. pag. Print. Waller, Jennifer R. “Maurice Sendak and the Blakean ——— . Where the Wild Things Are. 1963. New York: Vision of Childhood.” Children’s Literature 6 (1977): Harper, 1988. N. pag. Print. 130–40. Print. theories theories methodologies and Sendak’s Sustainable Art amy sonheim In 1963, when Max had just been born be- In the early eighties, I began to read Sen- tween the covers of Where the Wild Things dak in graduate school at Baylor under the Are and I had been alive for three or four mentorship of Thomas Hanks. When I was years, Max eluded me in the church nursery. twenty-three, neither wild things nor naked While my parents were occupied with choir boys in giant bottles of milk shocked me. practice, I bellied up to a child- sized wooden What shocked me was that I did not know table on which lay Wild Things. Never hav- how to read a picture book. I could not ap- ing seen this book, I lopped it open: on the preciate a picture book, I discovered, because endpapers, I saw bushes in muted colors— I had internalized the following shibboleths, olive, eggplant, and ocher—meticulously which stack children’s books below adult ones: crisscrossed in black. I panicked. I closed the book, censoring something too dark for me. Texts for children are less thoughtful be- By its lack of a golden spine, I felt this book cause children are less intelligent. Art for children is less ine because children probably held no pokey little puppy. are less observant. While adults touted Maurice Sendak as an Illustrations for children reiterate texts and iconoclastic illustrator who struck it big with decorate pages, playing negligible roles in kids by profering taboo messages, I as a tod- the storytelling. dler viscerally reacted to Sendak’s crosshatch- If a book is short, it is simple. ing, responding to his art, not the hype. Had Sendak been a popular illustrator for children hese assumptions, rampant at the time, pooh- during the sixties and seventies and eighties poohed children’s literature, dismissing it as solely because his message was provocative, kiddie lit. Like many other academics, I learned then, once the shock value had worn of, so, to question my assumptions by studiously re- too, would have his marketability. But just reading Outside Over here (1981), In the Night as readers still buy Whitman, Joyce, and Sa- Kitchen (1970), and Wild Things. I reopened linger, not because these reads still shock but Wild hings in a come- to- Sendak moment. because they still ofer moving experiences of As sensuously as if peeling an orange, I art, so readers continue to check out Sendak. read Wild hings with wonder: Where, exactly,