Where The Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

in
Where the Wild Things Are
By Maurice Sendak

A child gets sent to bed without dinner and in the throes of hunger pains experiences vivid hallucinations of wild things and voyages.

Banned

Banned for being "too dark" and for supernatural themes.

Most accounts are vague, but American Southern libraries and schools seem to be the initial place of the book being challenged.

Child psychologist Bruno Bettelheim criticized the book in the March 1969 edition of Ladies Home Journal, although in the same column admitted to not being familiar with the book.

Sources

Shafer, Jack. “Maurice Sendak’s Thin Skin.” The Slate. Original publication October 15, 2009. Retrieved September 25, 2018 from https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2009/10/where-the-wild-things-are-author-maurice-sendak-can-t-stoppositioning-himself-as-bruno-bettelheim-s-victim.html

"Dances and Dames"

Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak

in

A small man is sucked out of his clothes and into a hellish wasteland where he must defeat a cult of baking Hitlers before they give rise to the abomination known as M'ilk.

Banned

1972 - Sendak's editor, Ursula Nordstrom wrote to a librarian who burned the book and commented on librarians and teacher painting over the boy's nudity

1977

Illinois - Banned in Norridge at Pennoyer Elementary after a school board member complained about "nudity without a purpose," but was reinstated in 2012. 

Missouri - Damaged in Springfield by drawing shorts on the nude boy

1985 - Wisconsin - Challenged at the Cunningham Elementary School libraries for nudity

1988 - Illinois - Challenged at the Robeson Elementary School in Champaign because of "gratuitous" nudity

1989 - New Jersey - Challenged at the Camden Elementary school libraries for nudity

1992 - Minnesota - Challenged at the Elk River schools because reading the book "could lay the foundation for future use of pornography"

1994 - Texas - Challenged at the El Paso Public Library because "the little boy pictured did not have any clothes on and it pictured his private area"

2006 - North Carolina - Challenged in the Wake County schools. Parents are getting help from Called2Action, a Christian group that says its mission is to "promote and defend our shared family values."

"Dances and Dames"

Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/