Making Mischief

Published in 1963 to great critical acclaim, Maurice Sendak's Caldecott Award-winning "Where the Wild Things Are" has sold millions of copies worldwide, garnered countless awards, and been translated into twenty-one languages. In this beautifully designed, inspired book, Gregory Maguire, himself a master of literary invention, pays tribute to Sendak and his work as both an illustrator and author. In "Making Mischief" Maguire reconsiders Sendak's oeuvre with the same adroit and idiosyncratic scrutiny that allowed him to see a heroine in the Wicked Witch of the West (Wicked) and a backstory to the "Little Match Girl" (this season's Matchless). An accomplished critic, with signal reviews published in the "New York Times" Book Review and lectures on art delivered at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, and other places, Maguire examines Sendak's aesthetic influences from William Blake to Walt Disney. He intuits the 'conversations' - often unconscious and unspoken - that artists have with one another.