A critical and comprehensive study of Sendak's key works for children, including the groundbreaking picture book trilogy: Where the Wild Things Are, In the Night Kitchen, and Outside Over There; the aesthetic influences (from Mozart to Blake to Laurel and Hardy) that inform Sendak's narrative art; and Sendak as a cultural force whose modern mythology helped redefine our notions of childhood and whose pop cultural reach has extended from Broadway to Spike Jonze films to wild thing hoodies. Of special consideration is the figure of the child in Sendak's work, its origins as well as its monstrous and angelic incarnations.
- Teacher: Barbara Tannert-Smith