A rare Maurice Sendak story will be published next year.
Almost 60 years after the publication of Where The Wild Things Are (November 23 will mark the rumpus), the world is getting a new children’s book from the late Maurice Sendak. HarperCollins Publishers will be releasing Ten Little Rabbits: A Counting Story with Mino the Magician, a count-along book, in February 2024.
The story was created in 1970 by Sendak in pamphlet form for a Rosenbach Museum fundraiser, and you can still find rare copies on Abebooks. Illustrated in black pen, the story shows Mino the magician pulling rabbits from a hat, then putting them back in. HarperCollins acquired the rights from The Maurice Sendak Foundation.
Along with winning the Caldecott medal, and generally being a treasured children’s author and illustrator, Sendak is remembered for providing perhaps the greatest book blurb of all time for Stephen Colbert’s I Am a Pole (and So Can You): “The sad thing is I like it.”
Sendak did not have children, nor want them, but told Terri Gross that if he had to, “I would infinitely prefer a daughter. If I had a son I’d leave him at the A&P.” Memorable!
