Once a little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it. I loved it. I answer all my children’s letters—sometimes very hastily—but this one I lingered over. I sent him a card and I drew a picture of a Wild Thing on it. I wrote, “Dear Jim: I loved your card.” Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said, “Jim loved your card so much he ate it.” That to me was one of the highest compliments I’ve ever received. He didn’t care that it was an original Maurice Sendak drawing or anything. He saw it, he loved it, he ate it.
From Maurice Sendak, the author of Where the Wild Things Are.
hey matt, can you please share the source of that anecdote. it’s wonderful!
The closest I’ve been able to find is this Washington Post obituary: https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/post/maurice-sendak-and-childhood–we-ate-it-up-we-loved-it/2012/05/08/gIQAhfcwAU_blog.html
Hah! That’s adorable 😀
That’s awesome.!!!
omg, I love this! <3
I love this! I once got an email response from you. Matt. I didn’t think to eat it though.
That is an interesting story… 🙂
That is awesome.
It’s not that easy to eat a WordPress website though: I’d love to, If I could 😀
Thanks for sharing this
Such a great vignette. First saw that at an exhibit in 2013 on Maurice Sendak in San Francisco. Reminds of a line from Where the Wild Things Are: “Oh, please don’t go– we’ll eat you up — we love you so!”
Kind of him to be answering all the letters children send him.
I read he had a troubled childhood and his own parents did not want him to be born into this world. He suffered from depression (no wonder with a family history like his!) and had a life-long partner he kept secret from his parents.
We’ve read ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ as children at school. If I remember correctly it was called ‘Max en de Maximonsters’.