Reading Maurice Sendak

As long time Fans know, we here at Raleigh House are huge Fans ourselves of Maurice Sendak's In the Night Kitchen.  We like Where the Wild Things Are, too, of course*, but In the Night Kitchen holds a very special place in our hearts because as you might recall, Fans, there were the first words that Joe ever read. It's true he may have been parroting what he had memorized, but they were the first words he attempted with Julie's finger running along beneath them.  So we were sad yesterday when we learned that Maurice Sendak had passed away, and thought it only fitting that we read In the Night Kitchen and Where the Wild Things Are before bed.

Julie [as she walks up the stairs]: "Pal?  It's time for  books. . ."
Joe: "How many do we have time for?"
Julie: "Well, we could read. . ."
Ted [breaking in]: " Do you want to read the Maurice Sendak books?"
Julie: "Oh yeah!  It's a special Maurice Sendak day!  Should we read in In the Night Kitchen and Where the Wild Things Are?!"

[Joe starts down the stairs.]

Julie: "Pal?  Do you want to read the Maurice Sendak books?"
Joe: "No."

[Scene.]

So we read a set of four pre-readers, about Mouse (rather than Worm).  Or rather, Joe read them, and read them like it weren't no thing.  He stumbled less than a handful of times (still on the word another), but you should see him begin to sound something out without prompting (which is how he got another in no time at all), or look at the picture for a clue.  It's really something.  He's really, really doing it!

So it wasn't In the Night Kitchen and Where the Wild Things Are, but it all seemed a fitting Sendak tribute all the same.

*Remember when Julie once teased Joe that she would eat him up, and he replied, "I love you so"?