Thursday, September 30, 2010

Banned Books Week: In the Night Kitchen

Welcome to Banned Books Week on Fairy Layers! While not all of my selections are strictly fairy tale adaptations, I have made an effort to include books with fairy tales themes and tropes. All of the books selected for BBW (September 25th - October 2nd) have been banned or challenged for various reasons. I hope you enjoy!

Maurice Sendak is probably best known for his story Where the Wild Things Are, but another of his picture books also won a Caldecott: In the Night Kitchen.


In the Night Kitchen is basically about a boy who helps some bakers get some milk from the milky way and therefore gets cake for breakfast. If you like Sendak's art in Where the Wild Things Are, I think you'd like this one just as well. They are both whimsical fantasy stories about boys who go on temporary adventures, highlighted by imaginative, detailed artwork.

The book has been banned primarily for nudity; when Mickey floats down the stairs he loses his pajamas, and spends most of the rest of the book in a bread-dough outfit, with a brief jaunt into nudity (which is hardly explicit).


Other objections include a concern that the book encourages pedophilia (since there is a naked boy and the three cooks are older men), and that it encourages poor nutrition (since the boy gets to eat cake for breakfast). Umm... yeah... What can I really say about that?


1 comment:

  1. I totally remember reading this one when I was a kiddie. :)

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