Google is throwing a birthday party for beloved childrens’ author and illustrator Maurice Sendak.
In tribute to the late author’s 85th birthday, a delightful Google Doodle offers a 360-degree digital tour of Sendak Land from his classic, “Where the Wild Things Are.” The turning-wheel storyline also highlights his other masterpieces, including “In the Night Kitchen,” a book that incited controversy because its young protagonist appeared fully naked. The book was frequently banned from library shelves.
Sendak died in May, 2012, and was regaled for his no-limits imagination and ability to write books for young people that appealed to adults as well.
His work, he said in a 2009 HBO documentary about him, “Tell Them Anything You Want,” was “the only true happiness I’ve ever, ever enjoyed in my life…It’s sublime to just go into another room and make pictures. It’s magic time where all your weaknesses of character, and all blemishes of personality, and whatever else torments you fades away, just doesn’t matter.”
Sendak also said, explaining his motivations and inspirations, “I don’t believe in children. I don’t believe there’s a demarcation of ‘you mustn’t tell them this, you mustn’t tell them that.’ You tell them anything you want.”
The Doodle, which uses young Max from 1963’s “Wild Things” as a guide and features many of the Sendak characters, ends with the cast gathering around a cake at the birthday party from “Bumble-Ardy,” which was published only eight months before his death.
