A number of my friends cite Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are as their favourite book as a child. First published in 1963, it went on to sell more than 19 million copies.
The first time I read it, I didn't like it. I didn't understand why Max, the main character in the book, would choose lawlessness over the safe confines of home. My reaction to this story reveals more about my own character than the quality of the Sendak's evocative prose and well-crafted illustrations. I grew up as a rule-loving conformist.
It's no surprise that I also couldn't relate to the angst-ridden Holden Caulfield in J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. Why can't children like Max and Holden just co-operate and make life easier for themselves and their parents, I would wonder.
Then one day last summer, while browsing at a bookstore in Taipei for the third consecutive day, I came across Sendak's Outside Over There. I was drawn to it because I am a book lover and appreciate that Sendak is a leading author of children's books. I also took a quick glance and saw that it was a story about a young girl and her baby sister, which would be perfect to read aloud to my elder daughter. I hastily bought the book and went about the rest of the day in Taipei.
That night, back at the hotel, my daughter was too tired for a bedtime story and fell fast asleep. I stayed up and began to read Outside Over There. My eyes widened and my jaws dropped as I read this unsettling story about a little girl who was instructed by her father to take care of her little sister. And for the brief moment she took her eyes off her baby sister, the baby was kidnapped by goblins and forced into a wedding as a goblin's bride. I finished the story, paused to take a deep breath, and went on to read it two more times. Thus began my recent love affair with Sendak.
Next came In the Night Kitchen, in which three bakers, all in the likeness of rotund Oliver Hardy of the Laurel and Hardy comedy duo, make Mickey cake by mixing a batter containing a little nude boy named Mickey. The laughing faces of the bakers are at once jolly and eerily ominous.
