Wednesday, July 22, 2009

All Things Sendak!!


Dad, Noah and I went to see Harry Potter - we enjoyed it - but I really need to watch all of them and get some details straight!! The key players have indeed improved as actors.

While there, we of course saw "Previews of Coming Attractions" and lo and behold, they are making a full-length movie out of Where the Wild Things Are. And it looks like it might be pretty entertaining.

This is of course the perfect segue into the following: I was browsing in the Friends of the Monrovia Library Bookstore today - I dearly love our new library and want to support it in every way - and I buy copies of books that I have always owned - or at least have owned for some time - and then offer them up to any takers in the family. It's a good system - I can't remember who has what - so they just tell me which ones they want. (These books go for 25 cents each!!)


Hannah commented that she had to tell Robbie all about Outside Over There and the connection to our own dear Miss Ida.

So it seemed like a good excuse for a post!!

For the uninitiated, the young lady with the "wonder horn" is Ida. The baby in the cradle is her unnamed little sister.

And those creatures in the window are goblins - come to snatch Baby Sister. (And replace her with an "ice baby!!")

I don't want to spoil the ending - you'll have to read it yourself.

Maybe next year we can do the Caldecott Winners for our Summer Read!!

(Parenthetically, the very first children's book we ever owned was Kenny's Window by Maurice Sendak - it's not a well-known work of his - except in certain Terrill circles - but it's a unique, compelling, somewhat confusing but charming story - lots of dream sequences. It was a baby shower gift. And that got us started on Sendak. Just a little history for you!!)

Have I ever posted about Crows of Pearblossom??

5 comments:

hanner said...

oh man, i forgot about kenny's window. i love that book too.

grannybabs said...

I never see it on used bookstore shelves - perhaps some goblins left it when they came hunting!!

I will keep looking though!

Eliza said...

Ida was Matt's choice for a girl name before Theo was born too. (Mine were Fiona and Ramona...two names, as a side note, that you probably need to choose just one of in a family) I was skeptical about "Ida" so I remember when I was very pregnant...just a week or two to go...I went to the library and checked out Outside Over There to try out the name. I decided I liked it. Then of course we had a boy. But anyway now 2 (almost 3) years later we have our Ida. And she is a sweetie.

Another side note, the second time around my girl choice was Astrid. Funny how your tastes change. Though I still like Fiona and Ramona.

Sendak's Ida is in somewhat of a creepy story, but I still like her. She's a feisty one.

Eliza said...

I remember picking up Kenny's Window at some point in elementary school...I know it was when I could read. I skimmed through it and was totally baffled, so gave up. Therefore I don't remember ever reading the whole story and have no clue what it's about.

In the Night Kitchen, there's another weird Sendak choice I can get behind. "Milk in the batter! Milk in the batter!"

grannybabs said...

We read Kenny's Window over and over to Bonny and Harry because we didn't own very many children's books then.

They seem to know the story better than you younger kids.

Although Hannah remembers it.