What fewer people may know is that Sendak also created a
book in which a young boy spends most of the story completely naked. In the Night Kitchen takes place as the youngster dreams. His dream takes him out of bed---and out of
his pajamas---then into the kitchen where big cereal bowls and giant spoons
decorate the enchanted setting.
Unlike Wild Things,
Night Kitchen never seemed to overcome the controversy of featuring
illustrations of a naked little boy. We
certainly don’t recall ever being read the book during elementary school. Dr. Seuss experienced the same phenomenon:
Green Eggs & Ham and The Cat in the Hat always got top billing, but Seuss’s
story of The Seven Lady Godivas? Not so
much. Similarly, Shel Silverstein’s Where the Sidewalk Ends is a treasured
volume of children’s poetry. But Silverstein's poem about the kids who wish they
could melt right out of their clothes on a hot day rarely seems to get a public
reading.
We can see why. A Pennsylvania school district recently banned another children’s book from the library entitled The Dirty Cowboy. Just one pair of parents had complained that the book groomed young children to accept “pornography” because it featured illustrations of a cowboy whose dog won’t return his clothes after he takes a bath. Strategically illustrated objects obscure any genitals, but what did that matter? The school board voted unanimously to pull Cowboy from the shelves.
Future authors and illustrators are no doubt taking notes.
