Maurice Bernard Sendak (/ˈsɛndæk/; June 10, 1928 – May 8, 2012) was an American author and illustrator of children's books. Born to Polish-Jewish parents, his childhood was impacted by the death of many of his family members during the Holocaust. Sendak illustrated his own books as well as those by other authors, such as the Little Bear series by Else Holmelund Minarik. He achieved acclaim with Where the Wild Things Are (1963), the first of a trilogy followed by In the Night Kitchen (1970) and Outside Over There (1981). He also designed sets for operas, notably Mozart's The Magic Flute.
In 1987, Sendak was the subject of an American Masters documentary, "Mon Cher Papa". In 1996, he received the National Medal of Arts. Per Margalit Fox, Sendak, "the most important children's book artist of the 20th century", "wrenched the picture book out of the safe, sanitized world of the nursery and plunged it into the dark, terrifying and hauntingly beautiful recesses of the human psyche." His career was chronicled in Lance Bangs's Tell Them Anything You Want: A Portrait of Maurice Sendak (2009).