I’m going to jump right in and say that this is one of the greatest Christmas picture books of all time: Rosemary Wells is up there with Judith Kerr, Raymond Briggs and Shirley Hughes. Morris’s Disappearing Bag is a funny exploration of family dynamics, using Christmas as an elegant structural device. The story begins on … Continue reading
I love seaside books. Books about long empty beaches, old towns stuck in time and mysterious things that wash up on beaches. Or pop out of clam shells, like the toy twins discovered by young Mary in William Nicholson’s practically perfect The Pirate Twins. Published in 1929, around the time of Hergè’s Tintin in … Continue reading
‘An ocean tumbled by with a private boat for Max and he sailed off through night and day and in and out of weeks and almost over a year to where the wild things are.’ The moment Maurice Sendak’s wolfish hero escapes the confines of his bedroom prison and into the world, there is a … Continue reading
Crockett Johnson was a New York cartoonist and children’s book creator best remembered for his classic 1950s books about Harold and the Purple Crayon. These deceptively simple stories follow a small snub nosed child in a romper suit around a blank background which he brings to life with line drawings from his ever present purple … Continue reading
A small mystery for you: Why did Maurice Sendak never produce a Christmas book? A dislike of the season perhaps, or possibly because of his Jewish background? The latter seems unlikely as he said in 2003 that ‘religion made no sense to me’. Whatever the reason you just have to look at books like Chicken … Continue reading
A Santa book for our times, Christmas in July is the torrid tale of a year in which Saint Nick loses his pants to a rich, selfish New York businessman called Rump. ‘Who do you think I am?’ Rump fumed. ‘Santa Claus?’ ‘But I’m Santa,’ said Santa. ‘And those are my pants!’ ‘You’re a bum!’ … Continue reading
In 1982 Joan Aiken was asked to write a practical guide on the art of writing children’s books. From the first line it is clear that she wasn’t entirely sold on this concept (‘There is no one way to write for children’), but concedes that there are many practical things that a new writer can … Continue reading
In 1982 Maurice Sendak was interviewed by the BBC’s arts documentary series Omnibus. ‘The highly reclusive writer’ had just completed designs for a production of Profokiev’s opera, The Love of Three Oranges. He speaks candidly and widely about his life and career in children’s book illustration. The interview showcases Sendak‘s sharp mind and even sharper … Continue reading
What do you do after you’ve created the greatest picture book of all time? It’s a question only Maurice Sendak could answer. In between his two great triumphs – Where the Wild Things Are and In the Night Kitchen he turned to his two great inspirations, the fairy tale and his dog Jennie. The resulting … Continue reading
I’ve only had one recurring dream in my life. It’s quite hard to explain, as these things often are, but it involves me flying, or rather floating, like Alice down the rabbit hole, through some sort of shaft. Sometimes things go rather smoothly and I swoop and saw. Other times I’ll be flailing about, crashing … Continue reading
Here's a little treat for anyone missing Maurice Sendak this Christmas. Not an undiscovered book I'm afraid, but a story by one of his contemporaries, another New York author/ illustrator from Poland, Uri Shulevitz. Snow, first published in 1998 has that same distinctive mid-century style. His stylish caricatures are both crooked and curved. Beyond the … Continue reading
Maurice Sendak’s final work was published recently, My Brother’s Book, a tribute to Jack Sendak who died in 1995. His older brother was also a children’s book author, little remembered but with a pleasingly surrealist bent. Maurice and he worked together on a number of works including The Circus Girl and The Happy Rain, but … Continue reading
