5 year old
His books are among some of my very favorites. After marrying into the most unconventional of families, one of my favorite memories is of my three year old sister-in-law, (yes you read that right), sitting on my lap reciting, "Outside Over There" to me. It was her very favorite storybook and after my mother-in-law reading it to her so many times, she had memorized it and so would recite each page as you turned it. There as nothing sweeter than listening to this small little voice recite the words with so much emotion.
5 year old
So I have had a soft spot for Maurice Sendak even prior to having my own children, which was just reinforced by my son's love of "In the Night Kitchen" as a toddler and Christmases spent going to the Seattle's Nutcracker ballet, where all the sets and costumes were designed by him- sadly now recently retired.
7 year old
However for this project I focused on the book, "Where the Wild Things Are" because I knew it would be instantly recognizable to each child. Plus I knew I could share a fascinating story with them about how Sendak used his childhood experiences as inspiration for the illustrations.
10 year old
There was a bit of a tiptoe around the Holocaust, as I had some very young children in the class, but Sendak had relatives who came to the United States right after the war. To paraphrase his description from his perspective as a child, they had dirty teeth, wirey hair, and wore funny clothes so he was a little frightened of them all the while loving them too.
7 year old
So when it came time to illustrate the Wild Things, he used these relatives for reference. So each of the Wild Things in fact are one of his relatives. Pretty amazing, right? Well as you can imagine the kids thought so too.
5 year old
And so a new fascination was born and a deeper love for the illustrations of Sendak as they felt a kinship because of the connection they now had to his childhood.
8 year old
After we looked at Marice Sendak's artwork and discussed the different characteristics they observed, each child created their own Wild Thing with pastels on black paper.
They first traced their drawings with a black oil pastel and then changed over to the chalks for color and as usual, we were all a rainbow of color by the end of the project.
7 year old
We ended up with an eclectic collection of Wild Things in the end, a group of characters sure to entertain a child while spending time caravanning and creating mayhem as ruler of the Wild Things until they realized there was truly no place better than home and the company of their loving parents.
6 year old
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