MAX said "YES!" to Children's Choices

What inspires: Children choosing to read and what!Maybe because his namesake starred in the story, my son Max chose WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE for bedtime reading so many times we can all recite it by heart... Maurice Sendak, the author/illustrator/creator responsible for that story and for bringing to light the truth of good story--that good doesn't mean "goody-good"-but rather means honest, true, sometimes messy and naughty and irreverent, died today, at age 83, after suffering a stroke.

A 'Wild Rumpus' with Maurice Sendak

Fitting that the Children's Choice Awards honorees were anything but "goody-goods."  SE Hinton, author of THE OUTSIDERS, was there. So was Jake Gantos-- convicted felon whose not ashamed to write or talk about it--who said he literally picked a "life-changing" copy of THE OUTSIDERS up off the street.. Man of the evening was another dark horse:  DIARY OF A WHIMPY KID'S creator Jeff Kinney, he made a point of saying how 4 years ago he was unknown and unpublished--definitely not "Whimpy" now! (Surely Sendak was there in spirit, cheering with the lot of them.)

"This year’s Impact Award went to Justin Tuck, defensive end for the New York Giants, for his contributions to children's literacy. Tuck and his wife founded an organization called R.U.S.H. for Literacy, which encourages children to Read, Understand, Succeed and Hope. Tuck recalled how hard his parents worked to put food on the table for the family, and how as a child he never got to travel anywhere. “My mom always told me, ‘You want to go somewhere, pick up a book.’ ”--excerpted from Publisher's Weekly