April, poem and drawing by Maurice Sendak

APRIL
by Maurice Sendak

In April
I will go away
to far-off Spain
or old Bombay
and dream about
hot soup all day.
Oh my oh once
oh my oh twice
oh my oh
chicken soup
with rice.

SOURCE: “April” appears in Maurice Sendak’s book Chicken Soup with Rice (HarperCollins, 1991), available at Amazon.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Writer and illustrator Maurice Sendak (1928-2012) is the author of  Where the Wild Things Are (1963), In the Night Kitchen (1970), and many other books for children. He received the 1964 Caldecott Medal for Where the Wild Things Are, the 1970 Hans Christian Andersen Award for Illustration, the 1983 Laura Ingalls Wilder Award, and a 1996 National Medal of Arts for his contribution to the arts in America. In 2003, he received the first Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, an international prize for children’s literature established by the Swedish government.

May, Poem and Drawing by Maurice Sendak

MAY
by Maurice Sendak

In May I think it truly best
to be a robin lightly dressed
concocting soup inside my nest
Mix it once, mix it twice,
mix that chicken soup with rice.

…From CHICKEN SOUP WITH RICE: A Book of Months by Maurice Sendak, available at Amazon.com.

Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

This post is for people who really love books, especially WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE by Maurice Sendak…

“Once a little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it. I loved it. I answer all my children’s letters — sometimes very hastily — but this one I lingered over. I sent him a card and a drew a picture of a Wild Thing on it. I wrote, ‘Dear Jim: I loved your card.’ Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said, ‘Jim loved your card so much he ate it.’ That to me was one of the highest compliments I’ve ever received. He didn’t care that it was an original Maurice Sendak drawing or anything. He saw it, he loved it, he ate it.” MAURICE SENDAK

And to celebrate the free spirit of Maurice Sendak, we include in this post another entry in The Cecilia Prize, a contest that honors the creativity of the average everyday “restorer” — named in honor of Cecilia Gimenez, the  amateur art restorer who has gained international fame for her unsolicited restoration of “Ecce Homo,” a fresco on the wall of her church in Borja, Spain. This entry, “Ecce Sendak,” is by Twitter @dairoberts.