Maurice Sendak, often considered one of the most important children’s book artist of the 20th century, died on Tuesday in Danbury, Connecticut at age 83. Sendak’s longtime editor, Michael di Capua, said the cause of death was due to complications of a recent stroke. Sendak’s books were the pages of childhood for the generation born after 1960 or thereabouts, and in turn for their children. He was particularly known for more than a dozen picture books he wrote and illustrated himself, most famously “Where the Wild Things Are,” which was simultaneously genre-breaking and career making when it was published by Harper & Row in 1963.
Among other books Sendak wrote and illustrated, all from Harper & Row, are “In the Night Kitchen,” 1970, and “Outside Over There,” 1981, which together with “Where the Wild Things Are” form a trilogy. He also wrote “The Sign on Rosie’s Door,” 1960, “Higglety Pigglety Pop!” 1967, and “The Nutshell Library,” 1962, which is a boxed set of four tiny volumes comprising “Alligators All Around,” “Chicken Soup With Rice,” “One Was Johnny,” and “Pierre.”
