How 'Kenny’s Window' Revealed My Brain: Remembering Maurice Sendak

When I hear the name Maurice Sendak, I am immediately transported. Not to the steamy jungles from Where the Wild Things Are, or the “upside down” house of Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, but to my childhood bedroom in the suburbs of Chicago, where I first learned to read.

It was there I was introduced to several children’s authors, each of whom made a dent in my literary subconscious. The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter told me not to steal and to be aware of theft’s repercussions. The stories of Judy Blume helped me appreciate that I was not alone in feeling inferior to and often annoyed with my four older siblings. And the lifelike paintings and the words of Chris Van Allsburg with stories such as The Polar Express told me that growing up was not necessarily something to be rushed.

With Maurice Sendak, however, who died early Tuesday, and I am reminded of something else, and that something is magic.

Fans of Sendak know him best through his book Where the Wild Things Are, which has enjoyed various incarnations and acclaim throughout the years. It was Higglety Pigglety Pop! and the lesser known Kenny’s Window, Sendak’s first book, however, that stood out in my own family's library.

Kenny’s Window tells the tale of young boy who attempts to answer seven questions posed to him in a dream by a magic rooster. As he struggles to answer these queries, which range from seemingly arbitrary challenges to authority (“Can you draw a picture on the blackboard when somebody doesn’t want you to?”) to psuedo-Buddhist riddles (“Can you hear a horse on the roof?”) to discourse seemingly more appropriate for an undergrad class than a children’s book (“Do you always want what you think you want?”), readers see a frustrated and temperamental Kenny slowly come to grips with growing up. 

As a child, I first was exposed to these books on audio cassettes, which were shared with me like so many cultural influences by my older brother, Bill.

Now 37, Bill said the books embodied a strangeness that few if any children’s stories to date ever have.

“They were just wonderful, bizarre fantasy,” Bill told me over the phone, later reciting by heart more of the peculiar questions asked of Kenny (“What is an only goat?” The answer:  “… an only goat is a lonely goat.”).

“I believe they all incorporated Mozart in between scenes and as interludes between the books,” Bill added—a detail I only vaguely remember but one that makes sense considering Sendak’s well documented love of the German composer.

My mom, whose grace in raising two moderately quirky and pretentious sons I appreciate more each year, said Sendak’s success among her own kids and elsewhere was because of his themes and styles, which most authors wouldn’t think worthy of kids.

“I think young children are often underestimated, and you all really appreciated that quality in his writing,” she said.

Keep in mind that a considerable 10 years of age separate my brother and I, which did contribute to my exploring books and music that few of my peers were interested in. That was until I was a teenager and discovered newfound credibility in cool.

In fact, the character Kenny displayed a sort of pre-adolescent angst that, in hindsight, a prepubescent but still pissed off young Chase no doubt related to.

“Being the youngest by a number of years, you were almost like an only child,” my mom told me. “Your little brain was very fertile and your room was like a tiny, mythical getaway.”

I question my mom’s rose-tinted recollection of my fertile brain, which no doubt had too thick a layer of high-fructose corn syrup and video game static to be a true intellectual garden. I do, however, recall finding special solace in my childhood room, where stories like Kenny’s Window provided a young boy with a glimpse into a complicated world.