In the Night Kitchen
Common Sense Note
This story raised a minor furor when it was published thirty years ago because it showed a little boy's penis (hardly graphic, just a loop of a line), which served only to draw attention to this marvelous picture book.
Sendak's artwork is boldly expressive and adds to the story's momentum. The unpredictability of the language will challenge older kids.
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Peter Lewis
Like a memorable nursery rhyme, Sendak's story can be a quick and easy experience, but probably even young readers will be drawn to ponder its suggestiveness. Two-dozen four-year-olds in a nursery class sat rapt before a reading of IN THE NIGHT KITCHEN. You could hear the cogs turning: "I could do that," they were thinking. "Tonight."
The night is forbidden and thus attractive, yes, but it's no cakewalk. Something lurks under all the jollity, something vague but real, that keeps Mickey alert, in dreams as in wakefulness. Mickey's experience comes full circle---bed to kitchen to bed---which gives the verse a sense of completion, though the text has some curious turnings: "Then Mickey in dough was just on his way."
Some of the book's artwork is set in multiple panels to a page, a handsome screen of images that feels like a dance sequence, following Mickey's actions as set against a panorama of the city at night, a city of saltcellar, milk carton, and egg-beater architecture.
This story raised a minor furor when it was published thirty years ago because it showed a little boy's penis (hardly graphic, just a loop of a line), which served only to draw attention to this marvelous picture book.
Another particularly fine book that combines Sendak's startling artwork with rhymes that pack a punch is I Saw Esau, a collection of traditional rhymes edited by Iona and Peter Opie.
From The Book
And they put the batter up to bake a delicious Mickey-cake. But right in the middle of the steaming and the making and the smelling and the baking Mickey poked through and said: I'm not the milk and the milk's not me! I'm Mickey!
Plot Summary:
Maurice Sendak takes children for a joyride in this timeless nursery rhyme featuring Mickey, who tumbles from bed into the baker's night kitchen. Mickey's exploration of the strange night world is so vividly drawn readers almost live the dream, before returning safely to bed.
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Sexual ContentMickey's penis (actually a u-shaped line) is shown in the illustrations when he leaps from bed into his dream. |
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