| "John
Cech has written an extremely valuable and critically important book
which is both thoughtful and timely. Given the place of Sendak in
children's literature, Cech's book will become a standard work of
criticism in the field."—Jan Susina, Illinois State University
Over the course of more than eighty books that he has written and
illustrated in a career that has spanned four decades, Sendak has
become the most influential and, at times, the most controversial
creator of works for children. Each of the books in his trilogy—Where
the Wild Things Are, In the Night Kitchen, and Outside
Over There—has been precedent-setting, dramatically expanding
the boundaries of subject matter and images that have been conventionally
accepted in books for younger children. Sendak has been called the
Picasso of children's books, a cultural hero, and one of the most
powerful men in the United States because of his ability to affect
the fantasy lives of millions of children. Angels and Wild Things examines the unique contribution of Maurice Sendak to the literature
of childhood. It is the first comprehensive reading of Sendak's
key works that considers the symbolic child who has appeared and
developed in Sendak's books and remains at the center of his vision.
By fusing biographical, historical, cultural, and literary materials
with the insights of depth psychology and archetypal theory, this
study traces the evolution of Sendak's work—from its first,
bold steps in the 1950s, to its liberating breakthroughs of the
1960s and early 1970s, to the rich complexity of his most recent
books. Though touching on many of the works that Sendak has been
involved with, John Cech concentrates on those books that Sendak
has both written and illustrated—in essence, those works over
which he has had complete artistic control. It is in these books
that we can see most clearly the poesis of Sendak's art, the alchemy
of his creative process that has woven together the remembrances
of his own things past, the spirit of his times, the history of
children's literature, and Sendak's animating concern with the archetypal
figure of the child—a symbol of creative potential, emotional
vitality, and spiritual renewal. Angels and Wild Things documents the major role that Sendak has played in helping to develop
a literature of fantasy for young children, one that could explore
the "inside," the emotional, imaginative terrain of a child's experience. |
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