Did Maurice Sendak Hate Children? And Other Pointless Questions

I find the sentiment — that penning for children lone requires having been 1 — wonderful, but thing astir his statement of Maurice Sendak nagged astatine me, though I couldn’t rather place what it was. The punctuation went connected to picture Hans Christian Andersen, who wrote galore of the astir celebrated and enduring fairytales extracurricular of the Grimms’ postulation and whose statue successful Central Park often has children sitting connected it, thus: “[He] was a fussy, prissy, aged maid of a bachelor, and I don’t deliberation helium would person children anyplace wrong 10 miles of him.” (I wrote astir Andersen’s queerness, on with immoderate of his contemporaries, in my nonfiction astir The Great Unrequited Literary Crushes of the 1800s.)

Photo by Wikimedia idiosyncratic Ingfbruno, © 2013 and utilized nether Creative Commons

Ahh. All 3 of these men were queer. Perhaps that’s the connecting thread. But thing was inactive nagging me, immoderate unidentified portion of the puzzle I’d created successful my ain head. So I did what I usually bash erstwhile I request unspecified information: I started connected Wikipedia. I find the people’s encyclopedia an fantabulous jumping disconnected spot for immoderate taxable erstwhile I privation to spell deeper but haven’t yet figured retired the absorption of my dive. The citations and further speechmaking sections usually assistance maine to onshore connected a root that helps maine fig retired wherever I privation to be. 

The Wikipedia leafage for Maurice Sendak — and the leafage for Arnold Lobel, portion I was determination — brought maine to a 3rd sanction that made maine consciousness arsenic though I had recovered the missing puzzle portion down the couch: Ursula Nordstrom. I knew her sanction acknowledgment to speechmaking Maria Popova’s tract The Marginalian arsenic good arsenic this biographical piece by Jeffrey Davies. 

A children’s publication exertion astatine HarperCollins and a lesbian, Nordstrom worked with galore of the children’s publication authors and illustrators whose enactment forms the children’s lit canon we each grew up with: successful summation to Sendak and Lobel, she nurtured the careers of Margaret Wise Brown (11 facts astir her and 10 more), E.B. White, Louise Fitzhugh (further reading: Sometimes You Have to Lie), Ruth Krause, and Crockett Johnson, among galore others. Krause and Johnson were joined (to each other), arsenic was White (not to Crocket oregon Johnson), but Brown and Fitzhugh were besides queer. Is a signifier emerging? But then, Nordstrom besides promoted the enactment of Shel Silverstein, a consecutive antheral and a large aged slut (affectionate), truthful possibly it wasn’t that, either. 

Stuck connected the question of whether Sendak — and, by hold immoderate and each of these different authors — liked children, I scrabbled for immoderate denotation 1 mode oregon another. Having children of one’s ain is successful nary mode an indicator of whether a idiosyncratic likes children (and indeed, I tin deliberation of galore parents who similar their own children but nary others), but it was determination to start. Krauss and Johnson had nary children; Silverstein did, but didn’t rise them. Lobel had 2 children, and clearly adored them (there’s a fantastic anecdote from his girl astir the stories he’d marque up for them); helium came retired arsenic cheery erstwhile they were teenagers, but seems to person waited until they were adults to abstracted from their mother.

Sendak was childless and lived with his partner, Eugene David Glynn, for 50 years (until Glynn’s decease successful 2007), and portion I tin find plentifulness of grounds that helium was a cranky big who’d had an unhappy puerility — a large woody of his household was murdered successful the holocaust — I besides recovered rather a spot to enactment the thought that helium adored children, astatine slightest successful conception if not needfully up close. I’ve watched a fewer interviews with him, and personally I deliberation helium tends to travel crossed arsenic a idiosyncratic with a hard ammunition who is filled with wonderment astatine the world. If helium disliked being astir different people, it’s perfectly tenable to presume children were included successful that radical (the radical being, essentially, everyone), and helium had thing against them specifically. 

I can’t assistance but wonderment if the content that Sendak hated children — again, the radical for whom the immense bulk of his vocation was spent making creation — is borne of the horrible (and mistaken) content that cheery men are either pedophiles oregon hatred children. It is, perhaps, an hold of the accusations that bloomed successful the precocious 20th period astir Lewis Carroll, different children’s writer who ne'er married. The rumors that helium had intersexual feelings toward 11-year-old Alice Liddell person persisted contempt a thorough deficiency of grounds to backmost them up (and plentifulness to contradict them — an fantabulous root is playwright Karoline Leach’s publication In the Shadow of the Dreamchild; coincidentally, Leach besides wrote an adaptation of Andersen’s The Snow Queen). Between Carroll and Andersen, whose stories were written arguably for himself (and his crushes) and not for children astatine all, determination is simply a wealthiness of easy-to-misinterpret past that, particularly combined with plot assortment homophobia, mightiness adhd up to this (again, awful) position connected cheery men, particularly those who constitute for children. 

Did Maurice Sendak hatred children? Doubtful. If helium did, would helium person recovered specified delight successful Jim eating the postcard helium drew for him?

On the different hand, helium did erstwhile say, successful his last on-camera interview (via The Marginalian), “I don’t acceptable retired to constitute for children. I don’t consciously acceptable retired to constitute a publication for immoderate imaginary child. I conscionable constitute the publication due to the fact that I person to…I don’t person immoderate assemblage successful caput but my ain pleasure.” If anything, helium was penning for his ain interior kid (as suggested by Lobel successful the punctuation that started this all), and it seems that helium loved him.

In the end, the lone children’s publication author-illustrator I americium affirmative liked children is Eric Carle, who created an full museum for them. Maybe I acceptable retired to reply the incorrect question. Now, if you volition excuse me, I americium going to spell perceive to 1 of my favourite Maurice Sendak stories, Kenny’s Window, which is work by Tammy Grimes and has been my favourite audiobook for my full life. You tin perceive to it on YouTube.