Maurice Sendak Sent Beautifully Illustrated Letters to Fans So Beautiful a Kid Ate One

[demmiblue]

Source: Open Culture

I remember thrilling, as a kid, to the envelope illustrations that the magazines I read ran on their letters pages. Not only would some of these readers (usually readers my age, with a lot of time on their hands) go to the trouble of writing and mailing a physical letter to their periodical of choice, they’d actually get as artistic as possible with the envelope as well. Some even did pretty impressive jobs, though as the envelope-illustrators of our time go, few rank up there with the likes of Maurice Sendak.

“This is how Maurice Sendak sometimes sent his letters,” wrote Letters of Note, tweeting out the image above. “Just imagine getting one.” The author of Where the Wild Things Are and In the Night Kitchen wrote the letter contained in this particular envelope to his fellow children’s book writer-illustrator Nonny Hogrogian, author of One Fine Day and The Contest. Sendak’s close colleagues might have got used to receiving such unconventionally illuminated correspondence, but he also wrote back to each and every one of his young readers, sometimes with similarly prepared correspondence.

http://www.openculture.com/2015/09/maurice-sendak-sent-beautifully-illustrated-letters-to-fans-so-beautiful-a-kid-ate-one.html


He saw it, he loved it, he ate it.

[demmiblue]

1. One of my favorite episodes of "The Colbert Report" was an interview with Maurice Sendak.

Boo... they took it off YouTube. If you really want to have a laugh:

http://www.cc.com/video-clips/gzi3ec/the-colbert-report-grim-colberty-tales-with-maurice-sendak-pt--1

http://www.cc.com/video-clips/2uwi0i/the-colbert-report-grim-colberty-tales-with-maurice-sendak-pt--2

[mopinko]

5. thanks so much for that.

so very funny.
i cant tell you how many times i read that book.

[sheshe2]

2. Thanks for the laugh...

pricless. Our children are priceless.

[Lucinda]

3. KNR

[mopinko]

4. i heard him tell that story on fresh air.

i cant imagine a higher compliment myself.