I loved Sendak’s books when I was a little kid but, when I rediscovered them as a miserable teenager, I loved them more.  When I unearthed Outside Over There – that angsty, surreal, forlorn, gorgeous book – it was like being struck by lightening.  It walloped teenage me.  It didn’t seem to be a book for kids.  It didn’t seem to be a book for anyone.  It just seemed to be a work of art.  Outside Over There revealed to me the strange power of picture books – what they could do and be, who they could reach – and it kicked off a lifelong obsession with them.

Twenty-some-odd years later, I’ve read a lot of Sendak books.  I study them endlessly with the aim of becoming better at what I do and I read them to my son (who went through his own Outside Over There phase).  When my husband yelled upstairs to say that he had died this morning, I wailed.  I wailed!  And then I sat on the bed and cried.  And I’m actually still crying right now.  I didn’t know I’d be this torn up over his death, but there it is.  I’m unexpectedly bereft.

I won’t get into why I think Maurice Sendak was a genius and why he’s been a guiding light to me for much of my life.  Other people will say it better.  I just want to thank him for making books, for taking them so seriously, for raising the bar impossibly high and for baring his soul in a medium where people seldom do.  I wish I’d had a chance to say it in person.