{"id":584,"date":"2012-05-08T16:41:55","date_gmt":"2012-05-08T16:41:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=584"},"modified":"2012-05-08T16:41:55","modified_gmt":"2012-05-08T16:41:55","slug":"famed-childrens-author-maurice-sendak-dies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/famed-childrens-author-maurice-sendak-dies\/","title":{"rendered":"Famed children’s author Maurice Sendak dies"},"content":{"rendered":"

Maurice Sendak<\/strong>, the author and illustrator of children\u2019s books including the 1963 classic \u201cWhere the Wild Things Are<\/em>,\u201d died of complications from a stroke in Danbury, Connecticut on May 7. He was 83. Born in Brooklyn, Sendak\u2019s parents were Jewish immigrants from Poland, who lost many members of their family during the Holocaust. Sendak began work as an illustrator as a young man for other authors before writing and illustrating his own work. He received the coveted Caldecott Medal<\/strong> for \u201cWhere the Wild Things Are<\/em>,\u201d despite its many dark, disturbing images of monsters that concerned some parents. Sendak won several awards for his work including a 1970 Hans Christian Andersen Award<\/strong> for children\u2019s illustration, a 1982 National Book Award<\/strong> and a Laura Ingalls Wilder medal<\/strong>. \u201cWhere the Wild Things<\/em>\u201d was transformed into a one-act opera by Oliver Knussen with a libretto by Sendak in the 1980s with several different versions. After a long history of rejection by several major Hollywood studios, \u201cWhere the Wild Things\u201d was eventually produced by Sendak, Tom Hanks<\/strong> and others\u00a0 as a feature film. Shot in 2006 in Australia and directed by Spike Jonze<\/strong>, who co-wrote the screenplay, the film required a great deal of post editing. Starring Max Records<\/strong> as Max, it was released by Warner Brothers to critical acclaim in 2009 with both live action actors in animatronics costumes as well as computer generated images. Some of the voice work was supplied by well-known actors James Gandolfini, Forrest Whitaker<\/strong> and Catherine O\u2019Hara<\/strong>. The film grossed over $100 million in the U.S. and Canada before it was released as a DVD in 2010 featuring an animated version of “Higglety Pigglety Pop!<\/em>” another of Sendak’s best known works for children. Sendak died one week short of the fifth year anniversary of the death of his longtime partner Eugene Glynn<\/strong>, a psychiatrist and critic of the arts.<\/p>\n

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