Part 1 of Essay
was born June 10, 1928 in Brooklyn, New York. His parents were poor immigrants from Poland who came to America before World War I. Many of his relatives died in the Holocaust, and this was an important influence upon his childhood. His parents were always upset about the relatives they had lost and the cloud of death w ....

Part 2 of Essay
.... is a remembrance that there is always something fishy in all of his work.) Sendak grew up in a family of storytellers. His father told (uncensored) stories that were considered “not for children.” They were nightmarishly scary stories of pogroms, death, love affairs, and other Jewish tales. His brother wrote stories, and his sister bound the stories into books that they sold on the sidewalks. Sendak loved hearing his father tell stories, and associates good books with being close and spending time with his fat ....