maurice sendak is most well known for where the wild things are, but i think the story of his that had the biggest impact on me growing up was pierre.

in part because i’m an auditory learner, and i had the tape where some lady sang the poem. i think the flipside had chicken soup with rice, but mostly i just listened to pierre.

pierre is the story of a little boy who repeats over and over that he doesn’t care, no matter what is offered to him or what’s going on. eventually he’s eaten by a lion. it turns out he’s later released from inside the lion, but i guess that didn’t have quite the same impact as BOY DOESNT CARE: LION EATS HIM on me as a child because i gradually forgot about that part as i grew older. i was about four, maybe five at the time. my sister was either not born yet or an infant.

the story also probably had a larger impact on me than most children because if i ever dared utter the phrase ‘i don’t care’ my mother would instantly and snappily respond with “well okay, PIERRE.” i was a gulliable child who believed carpenter bees wore tool belts and refused to eat pizza for years because someone told me it would cause cheese to grow on my chin. my mother’s insistance that i was acting like pierre just convinced me that someday i, too, would be consumed by a lion.

i gradually grew out of that fear, but still.

mr. sendak, you are sorely missed.