Sendak illustrated Little Bear and produced its TV series

Person: Maurice Sendak
Lived: 1928–2012
Field: Children's Literature
From: American

The story

One of Maurice Sendak's first professional jobs, at the age of 20, was creating window displays for the FAO Schwarz toy store in New York. The store's children's book buyer introduced him to Ursula Nordstrom, the great children's book editor at Harper & Row, who also edited Charlotte's Web and Harriet the Spy. Nordstrom nurtured his talent for years; Sendak said she treated him like a hothouse flower and watered him for ten years. The Maurice Sendak Foundation names Nordstrom, along with the writers Ruth Krauss and Crockett Johnson, as his mentors.

Among his early commissions were the illustrations for Little Bear by Else Holmelund Minarik, a Danish-born former first-grade teacher on Long Island. Published by Harper in 1957, it was the very first title in the I Can Read! series of books for beginning readers. Its gentle chapters follow a young bear, his mother and his friends through ordinary days of play, imagination and comfort.

Sendak illustrated the first five books: Little Bear (1957), Father Bear Comes Home (1959), Little Bear's Friend (1960), Little Bear's Visit (1961) and A Kiss for Little Bear (1968). His warm, detailed drawings helped make the series a classic of early reading. Little Bear's Visit received a Caldecott Honor in 1962, and in 1997 The New York Times Book Review named the series among the best children's books of the previous fifty years.

Decades later Sendak returned to the characters. He served as co-creator and producer of the animated Little Bear television series, made by the Canadian studio Nelvana and based on the first five books, which ran from 1995 to 2001. He also produced The Little Bear Movie, released in 2001, which concluded the series.

He produced another animated series, Seven Little Monsters (2000–2003), based on his own 1977 book, which had grown out of a short he made for Sesame Street.

For generations of children, Little Bear was among the first books they read by themselves, and the television series introduced the same characters to a new generation.