Maurice Sendak saw the world through the eyes of a child his entire life. There was nothing sentimental in this, children are not magical beings who only see gumdrop trees and rainbows. Children quite often see the ugly and arbitrary more clearly then any adult. Sendak got that and, with his unstinting honesty, helped children process it for generations.
Of course the little Goofs know some of the Sendak classics - I bought GoofBoy a special copy of
Where the Wild Things Are. But somehow the best known Sendak work at GoofManor is this:
It is a painfully insipid story, about a family celebrating Hanukah. The big surprise is that daddy surprised them with a kitten. It is a bit of Jewish organizational propaganda, featuring regular mentions of the Jewish National Fund box in which the children are urged to drop their coins. Naturally, the little Goofs love this story and insist I read it to them every Hanukah.
But the illustrations are classic Sendak - and as such are just a little bit creepy.
Especially this one:
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