"No matter what I do in a book," said Maurice Sendak in a recent interview, "the controversy button goes off. Since 1963, it's been my fate and they expect something to be inappropriate for children."
Once again, Sendak's new book, We Are All In the Dumps with Jack and Guy, has proved him right. After a ten-year children's book hiatus, Sendak finds himself in the middle of a flury of press mess and intellectual "deeper-meaning" reviews. In the center stand nineteen lines two 18th century Mother Goose rhymes that Sendak has transported into a present day urban setting made of cardboard boxes and tents, a violent neighborhood of homeless children.
The books's focus character is a small, dark-skinned baby who's captured by rats and bitten into a pitiful black-eyed state before he's rescued by two unlikely ruffian-heros, Jack and Guy. Jack begins the relationship by suggesting, "Let's Knock Him/On the Head." Guy, a voice of reason, says no "Let's Buy Him Some Bread/You buy one loaf/And I'll buy two/ And We'll bring him up/ As other folk do."
The book is a journey through streets littered with garbage, in the foreground readers meander through pages where Sendak's cartoon-style faces attest to the horror of it all. The background contains memorials to James Marshall, a children's book author who died in these times of turmoil.
Sendaks once again dares to disturb the children's book industry and remind them that saccarine and syrup do not set standards. The visual jolt begins with the book's cover. It not only hints at issues within, but leaves readers searching for the title. The endpapers of coarse paper make one question if they're under a brown paper wrapper. In the world of chaos Sendak creates, it's hard to find the publisher, let alone discriminate balloon speech from the text. The format of book might make adults wonder at its ambiguities, but children don't question like adults.
Sendak, in a recent radio interview told the story of a child who insisted that there was a happy ending because the baby finds a family. This child ran up against a parent who didn't think that two young ruffians didn't constitued a family. I admire Sendak because he never talks down to kids.
Current reviews revive the tired debate over whether this is a book for children or not. This seems to me, the wrong question. It's intention is to aim at both parents and children, but I wonder if it succeeds for either. The debates obscures my two observations. I'm not sure if it's art, or if its art at all.
Sendak's true passion of late is designing stage sets. Picture books sharing is an intimate experience and We Are All In the Dumps with Jack and Guy struggles with its format of fifty-six pages. The book should be stained glass window or gigantic mural.
Worse yet, I question whether this book is art or social commentary. One of the simpliest definitions I ever heard of art came from Sendak's admired friend, James Marshall. At a conference, desparate to keep the teach and preach out of children's books, Marshall said, "if you can see the wheels turning, it's not art." I see statement first in We Are All In the Dumps with Jack and Guy, instead of the story. In Where the Wild Things Are, Sendak never named the monsters and book endures. I believe unnamed monsters and allegorical tales live longer and more richly in children's imaginations.
I am always sorry to see message win out over story, sadder still when diatribe comes from one of the greats in the field. I would wish that those dedicated to the medium of children's books become ever more entrenched in story, that story is stronger than self. And yet so often, illustrious writers and illustrators build a podium and decided that they should deliver sermon, not story.
It's not always so. One of the most respected names in children's books, Chris van Allsburg, has a new book in which he turns once again to story. I was worried about Van Allsburg. Just A Dream (Houghton Mifflin,$17.95) is a vehicle to describe his views on ecology and The Wretched Stone (Houghton Mifflin,$17.95) comments heavy-handidly on television and like addictions. His newest book, The Sweetest Fig (Houghton Mifflin, $17.95; ages 7 and up) is a book that will delight, not teach kids. The Sweetest Fig features a greedy and sadistic dentist, Monsieur Bibot, who is cruel to his dog, Marcel. Bibot smiles when he removes the tooth of an old woman. This is not just any client...she pays him with two figs that "can make your dreams come true." The scornful Bibot enjoys "the sweetest, finest fig" he's ever had until the following day when he, clad in underwear in the streets of Paris, sees the Eiffel Tower droop rubber-like over the city. In a moment he remembers that he saw this same view in his dream the night before and begins to prepare before he eats the second fig. Van Allsburg does not disappoint his readers, the ending twists with the absurd irony that always pleases his audiences and the greedy, cruel dentist is undone.
Van Allsburg, like Sendak, honors the sophistocated sensibilities of children. His colors are monochromatic as if to downplay the bizarre nature of his tale. He dares to focus the story on a horrible villan against whom he pits p a small powerless "underdog" who triumphs in the end. The Sweetest Fig, like We Are All In the Dumps with Jack and Guy is a morality tale, but it is led through story, not mission.