The Night Kitchen

Read Time:3 Minute, 21 Second

Maurice Sendak passed away this Tuesday at the age of 83. Sendak had suffered a stroke, and his long-time editor, Michael di Capua said that complications from the stroke led to Maurice Sendak’s death.

I dread telling our son about this. Two of his most beloved childhood books were “Where The Wild Things Are,” and “In The Night Kitchen.” He and I would sit together on his bed and he would rock back and forth, his belly laugh echoing through the house, as he listened to the madcap tale of Max and his boat. When my parents gave him “In The Night Kitchen,” the hilarity was almost too much for him to bear. And that became Josh’s favorite book.

“Did you ever hear of Mickey, how he heard a racket in the night and shouted QUIET DOWN THERE!” begins a most wondrous tale of a little boy who discovers a magical world in The Night Kitchen. Josh’s favorite part is when Mickey falls through the dark, out of his clothes, past his mama and papa “sleeping tight” and finds himself sitting in a giant mixing bowl filled with batter.

Mickey meets the bakers, who bear a striking resemblance to Oliver Hardy, in The Night Kitchen. They mix Mickey into the cake batter, chanting “Milk in the batter! Milk in the batter! Stir it! Scrape it! Mix it! Bake it!” At this point, Josh always looked at me, and in his little voice, asked “They’re not really going to bake him, are they?” No matter how many times we read “In The Night Kitchen,” the question was the same. It was pure innocence. “No,” I would smile, “Mickey escapes, remember?” Josh’s face would light up and he would shout “I remember!”

Mickey, free from the batter rising in the oven, begins to mold and shape bread dough into an airplane, which he flies around The Night Kitchen. The Hardy bakers are shouting “Milk! Milk! Milk for the morning cake!” Mickey, resplendent in his bread dough pilot’s outfit, grabs the measuring cup from the distraught bakers, and zooms off in his plane to get the bakers their milk. Guess where Mickey flies? Why, right over the top of the Milky Way in The Night Kitchen!

As Mickey flies, Josh and I would peer intently at the background illustrations, picking out all the details that make Maurice Sendak’s books so hypnotic. We would find egg beaters on top of a building, and a roof made out of a funnel. And then, Josh would grin and point at the train, the small train, high above the buildings and the flags.

Mickey drops down into a giant milk bottle, his bread dough suit dissolving, singing “I’m in the milk and the milk’s in me. God bless milk and God bless me!” He swims all the way to the top and pours milk from the measuring cup down, down into the batter, thus saving the morning cake. The Oliver Hardy bakers are overjoyed as they mix and beat and bake the batter. One plays a wooden spoon as a banjo as they shout “Milk in the batter! Milk in the batter! We bake cake and nothing’s the matter!” Mickey reigns triumphant, he saves the cake, the Hardy bakers are ecstatic and as the sun rises over The Night Kitchen, Mickey slides back into bed “carefree and dried.”

The last page is the page that always made Josh crow with happiness. Mickey, wearing his bread dough suit, proudly holding the milk bottle, surrounded by the rays of the sun. And in a circle around our brave hero, it reads “And that’s why, thanks to Mickey, we have cake every morning.”

I hope that Maurice Sendak is now in The Night Kitchen, with Mickey and the Hardy Bakers. Josh would like that.

Thank you to The New York Times for details on Maurice Sendak’s passing, and “In The Night Kitchen” for years of joy and laughter.