Monday, May 4, 2009

A Tempest in the Night Kitchen

How's that for a mangled metaphor?

Number 18 on Fuse #8's Top 100 picture books is the Maurice Sendak classic, In the Night Kitchen. She talks about the trippy story, but she also discusses the controversy this wacky little book has stirred up over the years.

Not, as she notes, because a little boy is being baked into a cake, but because that selfsame little boy is bare-bottom nekkid. Egad.
As a result the book has been banned, people have painted little shorts on Mickey, and some have even gone so far as to cut out and paste in little pants on him. Librarians love that. Really. Makes our day (oog).
Apparently, this is not a new phenomenon--it's been going on since the book's publication in 1970. Luckily, there have been supporters of Sendak's artwork since the beginning, too. Go have a look at the whole post.

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