During my time at the Herald & News over in Klamath Falls – my first newsroom gig – my then-editor called me into his office.
I entered, we talked, I rose to leave. I spotted a copy of “Where the Wild Things Are” on the edge of his desk and picked it up.
“I love this book,” I said, flipping through the pages.
He smiled. Then he gave me a quick rundown on how I was one of several participants in an experiment he’d concocted. Basically, he wanted to see how many of his employees – people he paid to write, shoot photos and video, and produce as interesting a daily newspaper/website as possible – remembered loving the children’s book as young’uns.
It was to prove a very basic point: Reading as a kid is remarkably important. Frequently, it yields good students, readers and writers. More importantly, it makes for better critical thinkers, productive citizens, etc.
I guess I passed the test?
Either way, his point was a valid one. I really got to thinking about today following the announcement “Wild Things” author Maurice Sendak had passed away. He was 83.
The world just got a little less imaginative.
I’m completely serious about that, too. Sendak is partly responsible – directly or indirectly – for people like me. The only time we ever looked like adults as children was when we had books in our hands, books by people like Sendak who told tales of imaginary worlds and possibilities.
Their books were the highbrow alternative to Captain America and Green Lantern comics, the consistent preference over TV. They were visions of what we wanted to happen whenever we hopped in our cardboard box spaceships and jabbed at the glued-on, cottonball buttons.
Sendak, Silverstein, Seuss, Van Allsburg, etc. We may not have known each other personally, but they obviously knew we were out there. They wouldn’t have written so many illustrated, bestselling love letters had they not.
Now one of them is gone, and I have the perfect epitaph:
Here lies Maurice Sendak
He thought phrases like “Grounded” and “Down to Earth” were boring.
