Maurice Sendak

Maurice Sendak, children's author and illustrator of "Where the Wild Things Are" and many other titles, will discuss his new book, "We Are All in the Dumps with Jack and Guy," on Sept. 29 at 2 p.m. in the University of Southern California's Andrus Gerontology Center Auditorium.

TriStar Pictures has signed an exclusive long-term agreement with Maurice Sendak and his partner John Carls to produce motion pictures for the studio. This marks the first time that the author of such children's classics as "In the Night Kitchen" and "Where the Wild Things Are"--one of the top 10 best-selling children's books of all time--has consented to have his work transferred to the screen.

He had already been proclaimed "the Picasso of children's books" by Time magazine when Maurice Sendak, then in his 30s, wrote and illustrated "Where the Wild Things Are," a dark fantasy that became one of the 10 bestselling children's books of all time. Published in 1963, the book was a startling departure from the sweetness and innocence that then ruled children's literature. "Wild Things" tapped into the fears of childhood and sent its main character — an unruly boy in a wolf costume — into a menacing forest to tame the wild beasts of his imagination.

Children's author-artist Maurice Sendak is appalled by some of the films nourishing young audiences today, to wit: * " 'Home Alone' unnerves me. Such a popular movie about a child, and one that's so mindless and violent. Why that is considered OK, I don't understand. And when I say that, they say, 'Oh Maurice, you're being so serious . It's just a movie.' Nonsense. It has material in it that is so sordid, so cruel, and the paradox is, that's acceptable."

Directions to Maurice Sendak's house here are a little intimidating. Over the phone, Sendak describes at great length country dirt roads with no identification, hard-to-see turns and easy-to-miss landmarks. On a rainy, foggy May day, the 90-minute drive from Manhattan puts one in mind of those mysterious journeys to a weird land Sendak's characters regularly take, especially Max's voyage in Sendak's popular children's book, "Where the Wild Things Are." What wild thing lies at voyage's end?

IT'S LATE AFTERNOON in a brightly lit dressing room in the basement of the Los Angeles Music Center, and Maurice Sendak is slumped wearily in a chair, overseeing the fittings of chorus costumes for next week's opening of "Idomeneo." Suddenly, a young man with dark hair and glasses, the last fitting of the day, announces to the half-dozen costume fitters and wardrobe attendants that the open-front sailor's jerkin they've put on him is totally unacceptable.

From their first "Rock-a-bye baby," children learn two important facts of life: 1) The bough will break, and 2) the baby will fall. Maurice Sendak is 65, but he still knows what children know--that life is risky business, that there is trouble in the world, and sorrow, fear and violence--especially violence.

Once upon a time there was a famous writer and illustrator named Maurice Sendak. Although his books were loved by millions of children, he was not cute, or cuddly, or constantly charming. And he did not live under a big toadstool like some do-gooder elf. No, Sendak was hard-eyed and sharp-tongued. He was more like Rumpelstiltskin than Prince Charming. If Sendak had lived under a mushroom, it would not only have been poisonous, it would have been booby-trapped.

If great art has to "draw blood," as Maurice Sendak maintains, the first cuts are made in the skin and psyche of the creator. Or creators, as in the case of Sendak, Pilobolus Dance Theater and a work called "A Selection." In 1998, members of Pilobolus invited the children's book illustrator-author and writer-director Arthur Yorinks, his partner in a children's theater company called Night Kitchen, to be their first outside collaborators.

Can I see another's woe, And not be in sorrow too? --William Blake * Maurice Sendak is outraged. Outraged by the plight of the children. By their homelessness, their hunger, by the plague of AIDS visited upon the innocents, by the prejudice to which the children, too, are subjected. In his latest book, "We Are All in the Dumps With Jack and Guy," Sendak is more serious, perhaps less introspective, than he has ever been.