In the Night Kitchen
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In the Night Kitchen is a popular and controversial children's picture book , written and illustrated by Maurice Sendak, and first pubished in 1970. The book depicts a young boy's dream journey through a surreal baker's kitchen where he aids in the creation of a cake for the morning.
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[edit] Plot summary
A young boy named Mickey sleeps in his bed when he is disturbed by noise on a lower floor. Suddenly, he begins to float, and loses his clothes as he drifts into a surreal world called the Night Kitchen.
He falls into a giant mixing pot that has the batter for the morning cake. While Mickey is buried in the mass, three identical bakers, all strongly resembling Oliver Hardy, mix the batter and prepare it for baking while unaware (or unconcerned) that there is a boy inside. As the bakers are about put it in the oven, Mickey emerges protesting that he is not the batter's milk.
To make up for the baking ingredient deficiency, Mickey (now wearing a bodysuit of batter from the neck down) constructs a working airplane out of dough to reach the mouth of a gigantic milk bottle. Using the plane, he flies up to the bottle's opening and dives in. After briefly revelling inside the liquid as his covering of batter disintegrates, he pours the needed milk in a cascade down to the bakers who joyfully finish making the morning cake.
With the dawn breaking, the naked Mickey crows like a rooster and slides down the bottle to magically return to his bed, with everything back to normal beyond the happy memory of his experience.
[edit] Controversy in the United States
When Mickey (who looks to be about three years old) enters the Night Kitchen, he loses his pyjamas and spends much of the story fully naked.
Critics of the book object to Mickey's nudity, with some librarians drawing little shorts on Mickey with a marker, or diapers with correction fluid. Some also take a Freudian interpretation of events, with the 'nudity, free-flowing milky fluids, and giant (supposedly) "phallic" milk bottle' [1]. Sendak himself claims not to have been trying to be controversial; his decision to derobe Mickey was to avoid the "mess" that falling into the batter would make of Mickey's clothes.[2]
As a result, the book proved controversial in the United States on release and has continued to be so, regularly appearing on the American Library Association's list of "frequently challenged and banned books", reaching #25 on the "100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990-2000." [3]
[edit] Art of the Book
The art is similar to that in Where The Wild Things Are, utilizing specific color tones and drawing a dream environment around a young child. Sendak's unique style captures the spirit and feeling of a dream, as Mickey floats, flies, and dances from one panel to the next.
[edit] Awards Received
Written in 1970, it has received the following awards:
- 1971 Caldecott Honor Book
- Notable Children's Books of 1940--1970 (ALA)
- Best Books of 1970 (SLJ)
- Outstanding Children's Books of 1970 (NYT)
- Best Illustrated Children's Books of 1970 (NYT)
- Children's Books of 1970 (Library of Congress)
- Carey-Thomas Award 1971--Honor Citation
- Brooklyn Art Books for Children 1973, 1975
