I Just Fell Through The Generation Gap

I got an inkling that something was amiss when our assistant editor suggested I add mention of Where The Wild Things Are to this post. So I informally polled the 20somethings on our team and sure enough Maurice Sendak was not a top-of-the-brain name for them. Some hadn’t heard of him, for others it rang a bell but wasn’t immediately clear who he was. This despite the 2009 motion picture treatment of Where The Wild Things Are (which raises another point: In The Night Kitchen doesn’t get its due).

Were children of the ’80s not saturated with Sendak the way we were in the ’70s? Is my sample size too small? For what it’s worth, Shel Silverstein was more familiar to this cohort. So maybe there is hope?

Late Update: TPM Reader JA fits the pattern:

I was born in 1980, and very familiar with Shel Silverstein, but not at all Maurice Sendak. In fact, if I were faced with a forced choice question as to who wrote “Where the Wild Things Are” that included both Silverstein and Sendak as options, I would’ve chosen Silverstein and been fairly confident about it. So, yeah, things were different in the 80’s.

Later Update: A small but vocal segment of our 20something staffers are protesting that they were not included in my informal survey, well know who Sendak is, and have been unfairly tarred with the failings of their cohort. I take this as hopeful sign.

Latest Update: TPM Reader RH unwittingly acknowledges being neglected as a child: “I was born in 1960 and had no clue of him until he showed up on Colbert a few weeks ago. Funny spot.”

Here it is:

Later Yet Update: TPM Reader JV identifies 1974 as the tipping point year between those who do and do not know Sendak:

I was born in 1975 — and while I’d heard of Where the Wild Things Are, it didn’t ever really fit into my childhood readings, was kind of just background noise. Shel Silverstein, however, was read to us in elementary school during our trips to the library. I can still recall the cover art of A Light in the Attic.

My wife is slightly older, born in 1973, and a) was excited as heck for the WTWTA movie, and b) nearly divorced me when I asked “what’s the big deal about that movie”?

Still Later Update: Children of the ’80s fight back, led by TPM Reader PS:

I was born in 1986, and Where the Wild Things Are was a favorite book of my three siblings and I growing up (along with The Hungry Caterpillar, Goodnight Moon, and Pat the Bunny.) In elementary school, we even did a short play version of the book, so it must have been familiar to a lot of my peers, too. If there really was a lull in the book’s popularity in the ’80s, I hope the recent film adaptation has caused a revival and that today’s kids aren’t deprived of a wonderful book. That is, if today’s kids read at all. RIP, Maurice Sendak.

Why Stop Now Update: It’s a cyclical thing, says TPM Reader NF:

In response to David’s post about a generation gap in regards to Sendak’s work: I’m a bit younger than any of the 20-somethings on the TPM staff (19), and I grew up reading Where the Wild Things Are and In The Night Kitchen. I also know of at least a few friends around my age who did the same. I actually think there might be a kind of cyclical nature to children’s literature. My parents grew up reading Sendak, so they read his books to me. The same is probably true for a lot of ’90s kids. Those born in the ’80s are more likely to have Baby Boomer parents who were in their teens or twenties when the books came out, so they weren’t really exposed to them.