All in the family

Maurice Sendak (1928-2012) modeled his famed monsters after relatives: “They were unkempt; their teeth were horrifying. Hair unraveling out of their noses." Notoriously spiky (of e-books, he said, "F*** them is what I say; I hate those e-books. They cannot be the future... they may well be. I will be dead, I won’t give a s***!”; of a fan, he recalled, “A woman came up to me the other day and said, ‘You’re the kiddie-book man!’ I wanted to kill her.”), it bothered him not in the least that his book, In the Night Kitchen, is among the kids' books most banned from libraries in this century.

Selma Lanes, a Sendak friend and children's books' editor and author, combines a biography of the artist and a visual survey of his work in The Art of Maurice Sendak, a large, lavishly illustrated book complete with foldouts of Sendak's sketches and storyboards for his books. Harry Abrams, the art book publisher gave this volume the full treatment, which makes it a must-have for kids-at-heart and visual arts fans of every sort.

Details:

Selma G. Lanes, The Art of Maurice Sendak (1993 ed., hardcover with unclipped just jacket, one slight tear on back edge, 278 pp., 165 black-and-white, 94 color illustrations, ISBN 0-819-8063-0, 12" x 11", very good condition). Your price: US $75.