On Walt Wangerin’s blog there’s a fantastic series of posts about children and the power of stories. If you love stories (for adults or children) this is a great opportunity to sit at the feet of a master and soak in some wisdom.
One: Wild Things
Maurice Sendak once told me of the furor that followed the publication of his children’s book, Where the Wild Things Are. By pictures and elementally simple language, the story follows a small boy to bed, and then into his vivid, funny, and sometimes disquieting imagination as the bedroom itself morphs into a terrible woods and frightening creatures appear: the wild things. Many parents and some reviewers were downright upset that small children would see such stuff. They believed it would damage the children, implanting frights and fears in innocent brains, inspiring nightmares. Sleep? Sendak hath murdered sleep. [Read the entire series at Walt’s blog.]