[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 87 (Monday, June 11, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3897-S3898]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       REMEMBERING MAURICE SENDAK

 Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, today I wish to pay tribute to 
Maurice Sendak, famed children's book author and illustrator, who 
passed away on May 8 in Connecticut, where he spent most of his life. 
He would have turned 84 yesterday.
  Tucked away in an 18th century home in Ridgefield, CT, Mr. Sendak 
drew inspiration for his widely read, uniquely bizarre illustrated 
stories from his own memories and contemplations. His fantastical 
realism--experienced by most American families through the eyes of Max, 
the central character in ``Where the Wild Things Are''--changed the way 
children grew up. Mr. Sendak created a new genre of children's 
literature full of vestiges and memories of the horrors he and others 
faced maturing during World War II, the Holocaust, and the Great 
Depression.

[[Page S3898]]

  Many of us have read Mr. Sendak's phrases to loved ones and puzzled 
over his intended meaning. Stories like ``Chicken Soup with Rice,'' 
``Pierre: A Cautionary Tale,'' ``In the Night Kitchen,'' ``Seven Little 
Monsters,'' and ``Outside Over There'' are now legendary.
  He committed himself to being an artist, beginning as a window 
designer at FAO Schwartz, and from there adding illustrator, author, 
producer, animator, and costume and set designer to his repertoire. He 
collaborated with many famed creators, including Jim Henson, Carole 
King, the Pacific Northwest Ballet, the Houston Grand Opera, the Los 
Angeles Music Center, the New York City Opera, the Chicago Opera 
Theatre, and Tony Kushner. Most recently, Mr. Sendak teamed with the 
Yale Repertory Theatre, in conjunction with the Berkeley Repertory 
Theatre and the New Victory Theater in New York, to produce a 
contemporary English version of a 1938 Czech children's opera about the 
Holocaust called ``Brundibar.''
  Mr. Sendak's emotional intelligence, visual expertise, and way with 
words have produced over 100 works, some of which have been celebrated 
with several prestigious literary awards. In 1964, ``Where the Wild 
Things Are'' was given the Caldecott Medal from the American Library 
Association. In addition, Mr. Sendak received the Hans Christian 
Andersen award for Illustration in 1970, National Book Award in 1982, 
Laura Ingalls Wilder Award in 1993, and was presented with a National 
Medal for the Arts by President Bill Clinton in 1996. The New York 
Times has selected 22 of his titles as best illustrated books of the 
year, and an elementary school in North Hollywood, CA was even named in 
his honor.
  Mr. Sendak was a lover of life and forever faithful to the artistic 
process. In a public and deeply personal National Public Radio 
interview in 2011, he shared vulnerable emotions, ending simply, but 
profoundly and quite tellingly with mantralike poetry: ``live your 
life, live your life, live your life.''

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