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Maurice the Mensch

A few more notes on the late illustrator Sendak

by
Marc Tracy
May 09, 2012
Maurice Sendak.(TateShots)
Maurice Sendak.(TateShots)

• Here is the first book Sendak ever illustrated: when he was still in high school, he supplied drawings for the 1947 textbook Atomics for the Millions (authors: Maxwell Leigh Eidinoff and Hyman Ruchlis). Check out these drawings. [Collecting Children’s Books]

• Very quietly, Sendak was an extremely charitable person, and his recipients tended to be implicitly or explicitly Jewish organizations. [Huff Post]

• Tablet Magazine contributor Jacob Silverman uses Sendak’s and Adam Yauch’s deaths as an occasion to make some very compelling points about how we collectively commemorate passings in the age of social media. [Jewcy]

• For a more serious interview than Stephen Colbert can provide, try this. [TateShots]

• And this coda to the Colbert interview actually provides a really mentally healthy way to look at all of our eventual demises.

Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.