Meet the author

Maurice Sendak.

Writer & illustrator · United States · b. 1928

Maurice Sendak (1928–2012): canonical American picture-book maker behind Where the Wild Things Are, In the Night Kitchen and the Little Bear early readers — defining twentieth-century picture-book voice.

Maurice Sendak (1928–2012) was an American author-illustrator, the creator of Where the Wild Things Are (1963), the picture book that arguably defined the modern picture-book form for the second half of the twentieth century. His wider body of work, In the Night Kitchen, Outside Over There (the 'trilogy' with Wild Things), Higglety Pigglety Pop!, Pierre, and his illustrations for the Little Bear early-reader series (Else Holmelund Minarik), shaped multiple generations of picture-book makers. Sendak's voice was unsettling, formally inventive, deeply rooted in European illustration tradition. The canonical-classic American picture-book maker of the twentieth century.