“Where the Wild Things Are” best-seller author dies at 83

PanARMENIAN.Net - Maurice Sendak, the U.S. author of the best-selling children's book Where the Wild Things Are, has died aged 83 after complications from a recent stroke, BBC News reported.

He wrote some 17 books and was a prolific illustrator, but was best-known for his 1963 tale of Max, who became the "king of all wild things".

It was made into a Hollywood film in 2009, directed by Spike Jonze. There have also been several other adaptations including an animated short in 1973 and an opera in 1980.

The book, which became a children's classic in the U.S. and sold more than 19 million copies worldwide, told the story of a boy who goes on a journey through his own imagination after he is sent to bed without supper.

Considered controversial for its images when it was first published - which some claimed to have scared children - the book went on to earn Sendak a prestigious Caldecott Medal for best children's book in 1964.

Born in 1928 and raised in Brooklyn by Jewish-Polish immigrant parents, Sendak said his own life had been clouded by the Holocaust and that the events of World War II were the root of his raw and honest artistic style.

His childhood dream to be an illustrator was realised in 1951 when he was commissioned to do the art for Wonderful Farm by Marcel Ayme and by 1957 he was writing his own books. Ballet and opera

Other titles written and illustrated by the author include In the Night Kitchen, Outside Over There, Higglety Pigglety Pop! and The Nutshell Library. His last picture book Bumble-Ardy was published in 2011. It tells the story of an orphaned pig who gives himself a riotous birthday party.

A posthumous picture book, My Brother's Book - a poem written and illustrated by Sendak and inspired by his love for his late brother, Jack - is scheduled to be published next February.

The author won a number of awards for his work, including the Hans Christian Andersen medal for illustration in 1970 and the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award from the American Library Association in 1983.