In the Night Kitchen is a children’s book written by Maurice Sendak. It won the Caldecott Medal in 1971.
Summary
This story recounts a dream
young Mickey has one night. In the dream
he falls prey to some mustached bakers who want to bake him into a morning
cake. They mix him up with a catchy
rhyme and toss him into a Mickey oven.
Mickey however will have none of this, knowing that he is not supposed
to be the milk in the cake. After
repairing his plane, he flies up to the huge milk bottle in the sky to retrieve
the milk. The bakers are happy they have the milk,
Mickey is happy and carefree with his naked little body, and finally everyone
can be happy that we will have morning cake.
Impressions
In the Night Kitchen uses the same formula dream theme from Sendak’s
earlier book, Where the Wild Things Are. While Where
the Wild Things Are takes the reader on an amazing adventure to a dreamland
with not-so-scary monsters, In the Night
Kitchen is a bit too much like a real dream, a bit random and
disjointed. On first reading, I had a
difficult time following the story line.
While the rhyme is engaging, I don’t think it is strong enough to carry
the whole story.
The illustrations are classic
Sendak with the larger than life cartoon characters. The expressions on the faces of the
characters are confident yet irresistible.
The city scape in the background is whimsical, as a dream would be.
Not to be missed is Mickey’s
nakedness in a few of the pictures.
While it is an innocent portrayal of a carefree young boy, some parents
may not be fully appreciative. It helps
to know that it is included in the book so if your child points it out, you can
be prepared with your response.
Maurice Sendak has said in
interviews that this is one of his favorite stories. It is based on an experience he had looking
into the windows of a bakery one evening as sister was babysitting him. He describes the sensuous aroma drifting from
the shop. I only wish Sendak had told
this story instead of converting it into a dream.
Professional Reviews
This is Maurice Sendak's
comic strip apotheosis of the Thirties/ dusky dream of sensual bliss/ bim bam
boom bombshell of a child-echoing picture book. Sometimes Mickey's toss and
turn from bed into the night kitchen and back keeps in time to internal rhyme,
or sets up a rhythmic chant or a remembrance of things heard, or makes sport
with words; while what's doing in the kitchen is the concoction of a cake by
three Oliver Hardy cooks who take Mickey for milk until "right in the
middle of the steaming and the making and the smelling and the baking Mickey
poked through and said I'M NOT THE MILK AND THE MILK'S NOT ME! I'M
MICKEY!" But wait: in his bread dough plane with his milk-pitcher helmet,
Mickey flies up and up and up "and over the top of the Milky Way," then
dives down into the bottle "singing 'I'm in the milk and the milk's in me.
God Bless Milk and God Bless Me!'" God bless naked and naturally exposed,
Mickey is pure joy. . . or as the cooks chorus "MILK IN THE BATTER! MILK
IN THE BATTER! WE BAKE CAKE! AND NOTHING'S THE MATTER!" (Can it go without
saying that the pictures are superb.)
--Kirkus Reviews, 1970
…Sendak was still concerned
with formal problems of unity and rhythmic progression in In The Night Kitchen.
He describes his difficulty in moving the hero from the real to the fantastic and
then from one magical predicament to another. He says he couldn't get
"that kid to budge." However, Sendak now seems satisfied with a
meandering phantasmagoria, forgetting that dreams usually fascinate only the
dreamers. "Fantasy," says Sendak, "is the core of all writing
for children;" we doubt that a fantasy setting alone or a series of
disjointed magical episodes is sufficient to evoke wonder. Lanes speaks of the
"irrepressible dream logic" as being enough, but for other readers
the capricious treatment of theme as well as incident causes an irksome
vapidity…
--The Art Of Maurice Sendak, 1981
Library Uses
In a library
this book could be included as part of a baking theme. Children could be taught some motions to go along
with the “Milk in the batter” rhyme.
They could jump up, do the motions and recite the rhyme while it is
being read. It would be fun to follow
the story up with a snack of some morning cake.
References
Kirkus’ Reviews. (1970). “In
the night kitchen.” Kirkus Book Reviews. Retrieved from
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/maurice-sendak/in-the-night-kitchen/#review
MacCann, D. & Richard,
O.(1981). The Art Of Maurice Sendak (review). Children's Literature Association
Quarterly 6(4), 11-17. The Johns Hopkins University Press. Retrieved January
30, 2015, from Project MUSE database. http://libproxy.library.unt.edu:2124/journals/childrens_literature_association_quarterly/v006/6.4.maccann.html
Sendak, M., Sendak, M., &
Row, P. (1970). In the night kitchen. New York: Harper & Row.
There's a mystery there
[Motion picture on DVD]. (2008). Rosenbach Museum & Library.Retrieved February
1, 2015, http://youtu.be/mZTQib7G2Hs
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