Thirty Years without Diapers: Expurgating and Censoring
Maurice Sendak's In the Night Kitchen

Matthew Z. Heintzelman
Library Science 278: Information Policy
Professor Cavan M. McCarthy
School of Library and Information Science, University of Iowa
Spring Semester 2000

1. Introduction: The Problem, Methodology

Censorship situations are strongly characterized by a sharp polarization between "camps" of "censors" and "anti-censors." Often this polarization leads to a breakdown of communication or cessation of constructive interaction between these camps (Foerstel 1994; Noble 1989). Within these contexts arises the vilification of the "other": Rivals not only disagree about the presence of materials in a collection or classroom, they even transform their opponents into something evil. While this may be expressed differently, both sides will often resort to name-calling and exaggeration in the hopes of winning supporters. Professional resources on censorship (books, journals, videos, etc.) are generally composed in support of free speech, so that their presentations are biased from their conception (e.g., Pistolis 1996; Doyle 1998). Interested organizations are classified as either being against censorship—such as The People for the American Way, the Office for Intellectual Freedom of the American Library Association, the National Coalition Against Censorship—or as favoring some form of broader censorship of or restricted access to library materials—Family Friendly Libraries, American Family Association, Focus on the Family, et al. (see lists of organizations in: Stay 1997; Barbour 2000). However, those often considered as supporting censorship do not acknowledge their actions as such (Burress 1988, 9), while the anti-censorship groups generally collapse all manner of book challenges under one heading (Marsh 1991; Doyle 1998).

All of these actions—on both sides of the disagreements—lead both to an excessive simplification of the discourse and ultimately to an inability to analyze censorship as a phenomenon. When all forms of "censorship" and "book-banning" are collapsed under one heading, we lose sight of subtleties that may help resolve such conflicts. Rather than resorting to satire and sarcasm (such as American Library's list of "More silly reasons to ban books" or Karen Jo Gounaud's "Ode to the ALA"), fuller analyses of the discourses surrounding instances of censorship would be helpful to librarians and concerned citizens in general.

Indeed, the list of "silly reasons" did prompt one librarian from Elk River, Minnesota, to object vigorously. The list first appeared in American Libraries (December 1998), and later was reprinted in Teacher Librarian (May/June 1999), where "silly reason" number 5 was:

In his letter to the editors of Teacher Librarian (December 1999), Charles R. Mann pointed out that the parents who objected to In the Night Kitchen were following a set procedure. He noted that the school system does have "a policy in place that allows for parents to question resources in our schools. It is their right to do so." (Mann 1999) Indeed, his comments show that Elk River had a reconsideration procedure that sounds very much like those recommended by the American Library Association in their Workbook for Selection Policy Writing. In this instance, the desire to make a point (i.e., censoring books is an objectionable enterprise) led to a derisive depiction of parents who were actually following the established procedures. Certainly Mr. Mann did not feel that his professional needs as a librarian were being served by this list.

By better understanding the underlying principles and structure of censorship, perhaps librarians and information specialists can develop a more constructive means of responding to such challenges. This paper is intended as a preliminary step in that direction. Scientific studies of censorship have relied largely either on statistical surveys (Burress 1988; McDonald and Stark 1983), or general compilations of censorship stories (Foerstel 1994; Sova 1998), which are often based upon brief reports from the Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom. The specific cases being considered here concern Maurice Sendak's In the Night Kitchen (1970), which almost from the beginning has been the subject of expurgations, attempts at removal, and even what one could call "economic censorship." Even though it was given a Caldecott honor award, it has become one of the most frequently "banned" books in the United States (Foerstel 1994).

Challenges to materials held in public libraries and public school libraries occur within social discourses which limit, promote and generally control the range of possible actions and responses to a given situation. Building on the seminal work of Michel Foucault, Paul A. Bové describes discourse as "a kind of power that generates certain kinds of questions, placed within systems that legitimate, support, and answer those questions; a kind of power that, in the process, includes within its systems all those it produces as agents capable of acting within them" (Bové 54). Our task becomes locating and describing the discourses within which librarians are asked to respond to censorship cases. In the following discussion of the censorship of In the Night Kitchen, I will not merely describe each instance that I have located in my research, but rather I will analyze the responses of various readers of this book. The discourses surrounding the reception of this "classic" of children's literature in the last three decades must be reconstructed not only out of the voices of those requesting its removal or expurgation, but must also include the voices of the author, his editor, various reviewers of the book, teachers, students, librarians, administrators, and many others. Each of these readers has had to come to terms with his/her own "horizon of expectations" (Jauss 1982). Literary studies today find that "meaning" resides not only in the text or in the author's relationship to it, but also within the relationship of the reader to the text. Since each confrontation with a text can either remain within the reader's horizons, or can be a challenge to those horizons by moving outside them, it is the task of the critic to determine the nature of this relationship. In the context of a library, this becomes important when the librarian is faced with the fact that what deeply upsets one patron (or "reader") may in fact be desired and accepted by another. It is no longer enough to defend a contested work by merely citing the "author's intentions." Each work has an illocutionary force which may vary from reader to reader. By filling in gaps in their reading, each reader creates his or her own text, and it behooves librarians and information specialists to understand that each reading of a text is thus different, and not necessarily less valid than other readings.

In order to place the comments of the "censors" into a context, we must first review just what takes place in the Night Kitchen.

2. Overview of Maurice Sendak's In the Night Kitchen

First published in 1970, In the Night Kitchen has sparked controversy from the beginning, and was heavily attacked by some reviewers for its frank sexuality (Root 1971). However, the layers of possible meaning in the story and pictures are so deep and varied that it in many ways is a book that is more disturbing to adults than to children. Images and themes of sensuality, infant sexuality, death, Holocaust, and aggression have been added to the merely obvious one of cooking in a fantastical kitchen. Indeed, while it is Mickey's nude appearances on several pages which sparks most of the censorship drive, the difficult themes lurking just below the surface may actually add to parental uncertainties.

Sendak moves the reader easily into his story. As noted by John Cech (1993, 184), the cover picture does not hide the events to come, but rather Mickey's smile indicates that the strange story inside will end happily. There, flying over his cityscape of kitchen utensils and packaging, Mickey looks confident as he leads the reader into the book. He continues to grin assuringly as he flies his bread-dough plane across the title page. This is not a book to intimidate or frighten children. The dedication to Maurice Sendak's recently deceased parents ("For Sadie and Philip") is also accompanied by a flying Mickey calling "Mama, Papa!" Thus, we see that Sendak himself identifies with his protagonist.

Addressing the reader directly ("Did you ever hear of Mickey, how he heard a racket in the night …"), the story opens with the image of Mickey lying in bed, hearing noises which cause him to shout angrily: "QUIET DOWN THERE!" Right from the first line, the reader is being drawn into the story as a participant in this fantasy (Sonheim 1992, 87). It has frequently been pointed out that Sendak introduces a "comic-book" style for the first time in his work here, which in itself alienated some of the admirers of his earlier works, especially Where the Wild Things Are (1964). Above Mickey's head we note the toy airplane hanging from the light. In the next two-page spread we see Mickey falling out of his bed, out of his clothes, and past a window and his sleeping parents. This is the point at which most objections to the story begin. For the first time in children's picture books, an anatomically correct naked boy is presented. The framing elements of the pictures evoke images from Sendak's own childhood, as well as contain references to his own adult life (e.g., the name of his favorite dog, "Jennie," appears on a clock face). Meanwhile, Mickey passes through a transition from consternation ("Oh") to accepting sensuality ("Aah") and joy ("Mama! Papa!").

In what is perhaps the most blatent of the frontal naked images, the next page shows Mickey landing in a bowl of batter. Behind the kitchen stands a strange cityscape of New York, with kitchen utensils and food packages as buildings or parts of buildings. These, too, are loaded with personal references to Sendak's life (Lane 1980, 182-183). Immediately he is approached by three fat bakers, all resembling Oliver Hardy of the Laurel and Hardy comedy team. The bakers proceed to mistake Mickey for milk and begin to stir him into the batter, along with flour, baking powder and eggs. As they stir, they chant: "Milk in the batter! Milk in the batter! Stir it! Scrape it! Make it! Bake it!" All that remains of Mickey in the picture is a hand reaching desperately out of the batter. In the first of a number of full double-page spreads, the bakers are shown taking their "delicious Mickey-cake" to the "Mickey oven" for baking.

In the first major reversal of the story, on the next two pages Mickey pops out of the oven, exclaiming: "I'm not the milk and the milk's not me! I'm Mickey!" He is now covered with a layer of cake batter, which becomes his clothing for the next several frames of the story. Meanwhile, the bakers' expressions show them to be either bemused or disappointed at the loss of their "Mickey-cake." Some of the batter even sticks to his head in a shape one writer sees as distinctly that of a yarmulke, thus perhaps feeding into a subliminal discourse referring to Jews and the ovens of the Holocaust (Spitz 1999, 61). Mickey is not finished, however: "So he skipped from the oven & into bread dough, all ready to rise in the night kitchen." Since the dough is rising, we should probably associate a certain warm softness with it, which for the previously naked boy (now encrusted in cake batter) would be likely to provide sensual pleasure. Mickey proceeds to take this new amorphous material and create an airplane out of it. While some have found sexual meaning in the terms used here (kneading, punching, pounding, pulling), it is the final frame of this page—showing Mickey pulling out the propeller of his new plane—which has drawn attention as resembling masturbation (Root 1971; Cech 1993, 204). It is not until the following page that Mickey decides that the plane "looked okay," and thus was ready for flight. Prominently displayed behind the plane on this page is a cocoanut-package building with the words: "Patented June 10^th 1928." Again, Sendak is referencing his own world: this is his birthdate. These references make it clear that the author is telling his own story, and is working on his own aggressions and repressed memories of childhood.

Now the story takes another twisted turn. As Mickey starts to fly away, the bakers run up with panicked and worried expressions, "howling": "Milk! Milk! Milk for the morning cake!" Pilot Mickey takes their measuring cup, and proceeds to "get milk the Mickey way!" Using the cup as a flier's cap, he flies up onto the next set of pages, and continues up, and up, "and over the top of the Milky Way in the night kitchen. The last frame on this spread shows him landing on the top of a giant milk bottle, smiling confidently. The most impressive two-page spread shows him on top of the milk bottle, with the three bakers watching anxiously from below. Having taken control of the situation, "Mickey the milkman" now dives into the milk bottle and fetches milk for the cake batter. As he goes down, he echoes a traditional nursery rhyme ("I see the Moon …") by singing: "I'm in the milk and the milk's in me. God Bless Milk and God Bless Me!" More important for censorship issues is that the milk washes Mickey's cake-batter uniform off, and once again he is left completely naked. Returning to the top of the bottle, he pours the milk from the measuring cup into the bowl being held by the bakers at the base of the bottle. This frame—actually two half-frames merged into one—has also caused concern for some. It depicts the bakers watching Mickey as he pours the milk, and thus it feeds into concerns of child pornography and the viewing of naked children by adults. The bakers seem to have other objectives in mind, however, and they quickly mix up the now-complete batter and place it in the oven to bake.

Mickey has succeeded in taking over the situation and solving the bakers' problem. On the next two-page spread we see the three bakers dancing and singing with the cake and their utensils. Mickey now watches them contentedly from the top of the milk bottle, as they entone: "Milk in the batter! Milk in the batter! We bake cake! And nothing's the matter!" Indeed, Mickey has used this matter to transform his earlier aggressive feelings ("QUIET DOWN THERE!") into a creativity which has in turn helped others. His dream now coming to an end, Mickey celebrates his success by crowing: "Cock-a-doodle doo!" Then he slides down the side of the milk bottle and back into his own bed. Again, these frames all show a naked Mickey from the front. He returns, "straight into bed, cakefree and dried." Now back in his pajamas, he falls quickly to sleep, apparently dreaming happily of the cake that is to come at breakfast the next day—"Yum!"

The last image we receive is of a transfigured Mickey, again dressed in his cake-batter uniform, proudly holding a large bottle of milk, with a circle of light surrounding him and with the author's summation of Mickey's achievement:

Maurice Sendak sees In the Night Kitchen as the middle piece of a trilogy on children dealing with their aggressions and emotions through dreamlike experiences. The other two works in the trilogy are the greatly popular Where the Wild Things Are (the Caldecott winner in 1964) and the nearly forgotten Outside, Over There (1981). In each of these books, Sendak places a child in the position of having to deal with his or her emotions, which must be done by taking control of them and redirecting them. While Wild Things has also drawn criticism for its treatment of raw aggression and anger, not to mention those scary "wild things," it is In the Night Kitchen which has suffered most from book challengers, primarily on the basis of Mickey's unabashed nudity. The Office for Intellectual Freedom claimed in 1996 that it had received nineteen reports of attempted or successful censorship of In the Night Kitchen; however, the list does not report whether this is the total number of reports received since the book's publication (i.e., from about 1970 to 1996), or if this is only from a more limited time period (Pistolis 1996, 61).

3. Responses to In the Night Kitchen

3.1. Censorship History of In the Night Kitchen

The general censorship history of In the Night Kitchen has been frequently reproduced in brief overviews (Foerstel 1994; Sova 1998; Doyle 1998; Pistolis 1996). The first reference to the book in the Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom came in September 1972 (page 139). At that time it had been reported that a librarian in Caldwell Parish Library in Louisiana, "knowing that the patrons of the community might object to the illustrations in In the Night Kitchen, solved the problem by diapering the little boy with white tempera paint." Already at this point the Intellectual Freedom Committee denounced this action, and went to work drafting a statement on expurgation. This statement, "Expurgation of Library Materials: An Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights," refers to "any deletion, excision, alteration, editing, or obliteration of any part(s) of books or other library resources by the library, its agent, or its parent institution (if any)." Such actions violate the first three articles of the Library Bill of Rights. In fact, Sendak's editor had already written to him, defending librarians as being his friends ("even if they don't always understand exactly what you are doing"), while lamenting the misguided actions of a few (Nordstrom 1998, 324).

This practice—supposedly Sendak has collected as many of these expurgated copies as he can—has not disappeared in the wake of the ALA statement. Indeed, in Springfield, Missouri, in the Spring of 1977, a similar form of expurgation occurred. The Newsletter cites comments from the director of curriculum development, Howard Lowe, and the director of elementary education, Wanda Gray. The latter's succinct comments show her admitting to being "an old fogey" concerning nudity, while also expressing the wish to respect the "feelings of people" (Newsletter, September 1977, 134). She sees herself as protecting unnamed others from Mickey's nudity. Lowe also refers to the "community standards": "Obviously we felt there would be a reaction, so we decided that if the book could be changed without altering it severely, we would do it." In fact, he claims that it is "a good story," which "normally wouldn't have been used" [i.e., in its unexpurgated form].

I have found one final instance of expurgation in my research. In the book reviews for In the Night Kitchen posted at the Amazon.com website, there appears this recent, anonymous entry:

This writer has given us numerous leads concerning his or her personal reaction to the book. Not only does the book lack "educational value," but it is so fantastic as to suggest a hallucinogenic drug experience. Most importantly, however, and here we seep back into our social discourses, the teacher in this incident has taken it upon herself to teach the children to expurgate materials. Her "creativity" has led her to abuse her authority by interrupting the relationship between the author and other readers, and to teach others that this action is acceptable. In fact, she only reinforces Sendak's own personal mistrust of teachers and schools, dating back to his own childhood (Berg 1993, 8). Interestingly, this author feels that "it's a positive thing to feel good about our bodies," and yet she or he is disturbed only by Mickey's frontal nudity—no mention of the supposed allusions to masturbation or other aspects of his sensuality.

As we can see from the above cases, the expurgation of In the Night Kitchen is an ongoing practice. However, due to the fact that this does not seem to result in legal challenges or wider disputes, the practice of covering up Mickey's nudity with white-out, tempera paint, or magic markers probably largely goes unreported. The expurgation has become in some ways a quaint example of "silly censorship," which can be readily cited in the anti-censorship literature to characterize all challenges to books and other materials as misguided. One common thread in the expurgation stories, however, is that the censor is a member of the system providing the materials to the children—either a librarian, a school administrator, or a teacher. These actions have generally been pre-emptive, in the fear that some unknown person may object. In the last example (from Wisconsin), these concerns were in fact to some degree validated by the statement of the pupil's parent.

The attempts to remove In the Night Kitchen from either public libraries or public school libraries has been quite a bit more contentious. Already in the Spring of 1973, two mothers in Lansing, Michigan, complained that the book was "pornographic" (Newsletter, July 1973, 89). One mother, using similar language to that cited above from Elk River, Minnesota, argued: "If nudity is acceptable in a kindergarten children's story, how can I teach my children that Playboy … is not acceptable?" Breaking through these words is the frustration of parents who want to direct their child's development, but who feel powerless in the face of outside influences. This frustrated desire to protect one's children also appears in a challenge case in Beloit, Wisconsin, in April 1985 (Newsletter, July 1985, 134). There a mother found the book "desensitizes children to nudity." After numerous "educated professionals" spoke in favor of retaining the book, this mother claimed that: "I have just been told that my children belong to the school district and not to me." The fear of losing their children for some parents is perhaps the fundamental issue for their challenge. While they object first and foremost to Mickey's nudity, it is their underlying fear that their child discovering his or her own sexuality will damage the parent-child relationship and thus cause them to "lose" that child.

Finally, on the same line of parental fear of losing their children, there is the challenge in El Paso, Texas, in 1994 (Newsletter, September 1994, 148). The mother claimed: "My son and I were offended by the fact the little boy pictured did not have any clothes on and it pictured his private area." Indeed, both of her children, ages 5 and 8, could not finish reading the book because it was so "disturbing." This is to say that not only did they not wish to read the book, but that it "discourages family reading time." Again, the book is the focal point as somehow causing the loss of intimacy between parents and child(ren). Exactly why the children found it disturbing is not discussed.

There are other instances of challenges reported in the Newsletter from Norridge, Illinois (May 1977, 71), Champaign, Illinois (March 1989, 43), and Elk River, Minnesota (March 1993, 41). Most of these discussions contain little of the original words of those seeking censorship: Mostly they have one-word descriptions of the book as "sexually explicit," or having "nudity for no purpose."

Sendak defends his treatment of the sexual matter, by placing the light at a slightly different angle:

Indeed, perhaps the discomfort displayed by the children in these cases stems less from their own conviction that nudity and sensuality are wrong, but rather from their fear of discussing these issues in front of their parents, who have voiced their own disapproval of the subject area. In a case from Camden, New York (Newsletter, November 1989, 217), the mother reportedly responded to the first picture of Mickey's penis by closing the book and saying, "I don't think we'll read this book." We do not know how her son would have responded to this picture since she effectively censored it from him. However, her prejudicing of his reception almost assures that his eventual reaction will not be immediate, but rather framed in the empowering discourse of parental expectations.

It can also be argued that censorious activity takes place not only in the expurgation of books or in official challenge situations. In one particularly negative set of book reviews, Shelton L. Root, Jr. vigorously attacked In the Night Kitchen and its sexual content. Unlike the simple objection to Mickey's nudity, Root finds much more that is objectionable—including the unbridled sensuality:

What is perhaps more ominous than his complete displeasure at the book and its depiction of Mickey's sensuality, is a form of economic censorship which Root suggests at the beginning of his article:

Thus, while acknowledging that the book is important enough to read, it should not be purchased. Thus, not only does he not recommend the book, he in fact tries to remove it from the public sphere through economic means—a book that does not sell will not be reprinted. To be certain, Root also takes exception to Mickey's nudity, which he sees as a continuation of explicit child nudity already manifested in Sendak's illustrations for George MacDonald's The Light Princess. In a later follow-up to his initial review (Root 1971, 537), Root further specifies his dislike of the book by indicating that for him, Mickey's satisfied rest at the end of the book is perhaps indicating that "at the outset Mickey had a dirty diaper and at the end he was freshly changed." It may be asking too much to claim that Root was acting as a censor of the book, but he certainly stands out as the most negative of the reviewers of In the Night Kitchen.

Oddly enough, most other initial reviews of the book largely gloss over the whole issue of nudity. This is all the more curious in light of the later contention that this was the first children's book to display anatomically correct, frontal nudity of a young boy. Many of the reviews simply do not mention this fact (Booklist, vol. 67, January 15, 1971, 423; the Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, vol. 24, January 1971, 80; and Instructor, vol. 80, February 1971, 136), while others mention it only fleetingly and entirely in the language of the book itself—Mickey fell "out of his clothes" (Grade Teacher, vol. 88, March 1971, 96; Hornbook, vol. 47, February 1971, 44). Most of the reviews focus on the themes of cooking and dreams. I only found one positive review which looked at its sexual (or perhaps, "sensual") overtones (Library Journal, vol. 95, December 15, 1970, 4327). While the review is not exactly an unequivocal endorsement of the book, it does describe the book as controversial due to the celebration of childhood sexuality. Ultimately, the reviewer writes, Mickey is like two earlier heroes in Sendak's books (Pierre and Max), and he is "thumbing his nose at the repressive, adult "real world" in his uninhibited expression of pure uncorrupted id." More recent reviews (e.g., at amazon.com) demonstrate a general knowledge of the controversies surrounding the book, and one writer even urges those disturbed by the pictures to "get over their ISSUES!" That is to say, negative response to the book is not a result of it transgressing society limits so much as a manifestation of the repressed sexuality of the complainers. Another writer (reader) states explicitly that, "There are no p[r]urient undertones here." (See: www address for Amazon.com reviews in bibliography.)

3.2. Other Readings of In the Night Kitchen

While much of the debate over In the Night Kitchen attempts to shift attention away from Mickey's nudity, several writers see this as the primary focus of the text. While acknowledging some of the controversy surrounding the book, Amy Sonheim points to the "sensuous, kinetic pleasures of rushing, soaring, swimming, and resting" (1992, 86). Her interest lies especially in the invitation directed to the reader to join Mickey in his subconscious world of the dream, and the narrative techniques used to bring the reader into this fantasy. Ellen Handler Spitz also mentions the instances of diapering Mickey, but she looks elsewhere for the book's thematic—notably in Mickey's overcoming of his aggression and emotions:

Mickey's transference of anger into aggression is symptomatic of the gender difference in which little girls turn anger against themselves and boys turn their anger against the outside world. Spitz, more than other writers used in this study, describes the images of the Night Kitchen as having Holocaust overtones. Oliver Hardy's little mustache is reminiscent of Adolf Hitler's, the cake batter on Mickey's head resembles a yarmulke, and the pictures contain possible biblical symbolism (Spitz 1999, 60-62). Indeed, her views add a layer of meaning to an already disturbing book. In light of the author's own admission of a certain amount of survivor guilt (many members of his father's family died in the Holocaust), such references are not entirely out of the question. For this and other reasons, Spitz's suggestion seems utterly valid: "In the Night Kitchen is indisputably a fascinating work, but it is clearly not the right bedtime story for all children" (Spitz 1999, 64).

Psychoanalytical methods have been applied to this story as well. The two main psychoanalytical readings have gone in quite different directions, however. Lucy Rollin (1999) applies Freud's teachings generously to Mickey's dream, in particular those concerning infantile sexuality. For her, the noises that awaken Mickey are perhaps from his parents engaging in an activity from which he is barred. She even claims that Mickey's yell of "QUIET DOWN THERE!" may be directed as much to his own sexual drive as to the originators of the noise. As others have done, she too finds Mickey's sensual pleasures foundational to the story: "for, if Max [of Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are] represents the sadistic-anal phase of infantile sexuality, Mickey represents a later phase which Freud called the second phase of infantile masturbation" (Rollin 1999, 82). Sexual references abound as the noises from the parents' room represent the act of procreation, Mickey is reborn from the oven, and the milk in which he swims becomes both the life-giving milk from the mother and the seminal liquid of conception. Rollin acknowledges that the general reader (even an informed one) will not perceive these levels of meanings she has outlined. In what seems a rather naïve conclusion, she states that this Freudian interpretation might actually release In the Night Kitchen from some of the attacks against it:

I cannot imagine that understanding the Freudian imagery in In the Night Kitchen would have calmed the urge to expurgate or remove this book. On the contrary, if the censors are motivated by their own repressed sexuality, as Sendak himself suggests (West 1988, 88), then deepening the relationship to sexuality in the book would have likely offended more, not fewer readers.

Taking an altogether different tack, John Cech (1993) studies the use of archetypes in In the Night Kitchen. He sees this as "Sendak's fullest exploration to date of the unconscious and the primordial material … that lies in its deepest reaches and that can be shaped into images that offer us the psychic experience of both life and death." Where others have found sexuality, sensuality, Holocaust, anger, aggression—not to mention baking and fantasy—Cech now shifts the discourse to one concerning death, especially in the parallel worlds of death and sleep. Again, Sendak's biography enters into the discourse as Cech recounts the author's fear of death as a child growing up in Brooklyn. Out of Sendak's sickly childhood came the fundamental fear that his parents had thought he might die (Cech 1993, 182). Considering the loss of his parents and beloved dog, Jennie, in the years immediately prior to the appearance of In the Night Kitchen, such concerns are indeed not unexpected. Mickey's nudity is not mere sensuality, but a "powerful evocation of that transitional state between worlds, between the known and the other" (Cech 1993, 194). For Cech (1993, 195), the negative reaction to Mickey's nudity largely indicated the "persisting denial of Freud's theories of infantile sexuality." Yet, here the nudity seems to point to "a kind of mythic timelessness" and "psychological nakedness" (Cech 1993, 196). While Cech does not wish to remove the stigma of sexuality from this book, he is shifting attention to other, fundamental structures within the narrative.

Finally, one more "reader" of the story is Rita Dove, an American poet who has even read one of her poems at the Library of Congress, entitled: "After Reading Mickey in the Night Kitchen for the Third Time Before Bed" (Dove 1989, 41). In this poem of infantile sexual awakening, the poet describes her daughter's fascination with her vagina, and the girl asks to compare hers with her mother's, which they then do. Echoing Mickey's triumphant hymn from In the Night Kitchen, Dove closes with:

Here is a reader who is completely unabashed about the sexual—infantile sexual—nature of Mickey's fantasy. In some ways, the poet is taking Sendak's situation to the logical conclusion, albeit in a different gender setting. Even though she describes misgivings about reading the poem at the Library of Congress (Cavalieri 1995), Dove claims that it was ultimately a very liberating experience—something that perhaps Maurice Sendak would appreciate, while his attackers would of course claim that it proves their contention that Mickey's experiences in the Night Kitchen could lead to "harder stuff."

4. Conclusion

We have seen how the discourse surrounding censorship cases is considerably more complicated than many censorship resources would have us believe. In the case of In the Night Kitchen, many of the presuppositions of both those challenging the book and those who support it are not without complicating undertones. Foucault acknowledged that we cannot always simply say or do what we please, since there are controlling factors in the discourses around us:

Indeed, modern discourses on sexuality—including infantile sexuality, sensuality, and child abuse—form some of the web in which In the Night Kitchen is often caught. The objections to the book may not be against it (or Mickey's nudity) per se, but rather grow out of greater discourses concerning access to pornography via the internet and other contemporary media. In the end, those objecting are tipping the balance between the right to free speech and the need to protect those who cannot protect themselves (Rogers 1988). Librarians must always be cognizant of the fact that those bringing challenges are truly upset by the materials in questions. Whenever possible, it is best not to belittle the reactions of parents and readers against books such as In the Night Kitchen. For it truly is a disturbing work. Its lasting value in the realm of children's literature rests, I feel, precisely in its ability to disturb the reader and provoke reaction. While it may not be a book for all, the multiplicity of reactions to it—both favorable and unfavorable—show that it is a book which librarians should study closely, before someone challenges it.

REFERENCE LIST OF WORKS USED

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Foerstel, Herbert N. 1994. Banned in the U.S.A. Westport, CT.: Greenwood.

Foucault, Michel. 1972. The Archaeology of Knowledge and The Discourse on Language. Translated by A.M. Sheridan Smith. New York: Pantheon Books.

Freud, Sigmund. 1938. The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud. Trans. and ed. Dr. A. A. Brill. New York: Modern Library.

Gounaud, Karen Jo. 1995. "Ode to the ALA." Online. Family Friendly Libraries website: www.fflibraries.org/On_ALA/OdeToALA.htm. 6 February 2000.

Gross, Terry. "[Interview with] Maurice Sendak." Transcript of Fresh Air (radio broadcast). Online. ProQuest. 30 March 2000.

Hentoff, Nat. 1992. Free Speech for Me—But Not for Thee. New York: HarperCollins.

Holub, Robert C. 1984. Reception Theory: A Critical Introduction. London, New York: Methuen.

Jauss, Hans Robert. 1982. Toward an Aesthetic of Reception. Translated by Timothy Bahti. Theory and History of Literature, vol. 2. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Jung, Carl Gustav. 1976. The Portable Jung. Ed. Joseph Campbell and trans. R. F. C. Hull. New York, NY: Penguin Books.

Lanes, Selma G. 1980. The Art of Maurice Sendak. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc.

Lurie, Alison. 1990. Don't Tell the Grown-Ups: The Subversive Power of Children's Literature. Boston: Little, Brown & Co. (rpt. 1998).

Mann, Charles R. [Untitled letter.] Teacher Librarian 27 (December 1999): 71. Online. ProQuest. 23 March 2000.

Marcus, Leonard S. 1996. "An Interview with Ethel Heins." The Horn Book Magazine 72 (November/December 1996): 694. Online. ProQuest. 23 March 2000.

Marsh, Dave. 1991. 50 Ways to Fight Censorship. New York: Thunder's Mouth Press.

McDonald, Fran, and Matthew Stark. 1983. A Report of a Survey on Censorship in Public Elementary and High School Libraries and Public Libraries in Minnesota. Minneapolis: Privately printed by the Minnesota Civil Liberties Union.

Monroe, Judy. 1990. Censorship. The Facts About. New York: Crestwood House.

Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom,
(September 1972): 139;
(May 1977): 71;
(September 1977): 134;
(July 1985): 134;
(March 1989): 43;
(November 1989): 217;
(March 1993): 41;
(September 1994): 148.

Noble, William. 1990. Bookbanning in America: Who Bans Books?—And Why. Middlebury, VT: Paul S. Eriksson (1992 rpt).

Nordstrom, Ursula. 1998. Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom. New York: HarperCollins.

Palumbo, Thomas. 1993. Integrating the Literature of Maurice Sendak into the Classroom. Carthage, IL: Good Apple,.

Pistolis, Donna Reidy, ed. 1996. Hit List: Frequently Challenged Books for Children. Chicago: American Library Association.

Public Library of Des Moines. Library Materials Selection Policy. July 1997.

Public Library of Des Moines. Statement of Concern About Library Resources. [Form] 3210, Rev. 8/97.

Reid, Carol. 1999. "'Challenge,' and Other Politely Empowering Euphemisms." American Libraries 30 (June/July 1999): 60. Online. ProQuest. 23 March 2000.

Riley, Gail Blasser. 1998. Censorship. Library in a Book. New York: Facts on File.

Rogers, Donald. 1988. Banned! Censorship in the Schools. New York: Messner/Simon and Schuster.

Rollin, Lucy. 1999. "Childhood Fantasies and Frustrations in Maurice Sendak's Picture Books." In Psychoanalytic Responses to Children's Literature, ed. by Lucy Rollin and Mark I. West. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland.

Root, Shelton L., Jr. 1971. "In the Night Kitchen." Elementary English 48 (1971): 262-263, and 537.

Saltman, Judith. 1998. "Censoring the Imagination: Challenges to Children's Books." Emergency Librarian 25 (January/February 1998): 8-12. Online. ProQuest. 23 March 2000.

Sendak, Maurice. 1970. In the Night Kitchen. [New York?]: Harper & Row.

Sonheim, Amy. 1992. Maurice Sendak. New York: Twayne, etc.

Sova, Dawn B. 1998. Banned Books: Literature Suppressed on Social Grounds. Banned Books [series]. New York: Facts on File.

Spitz, Ellen Handler. 1999. Inside Picture Books. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.

Stay, Byron L., ed. 1997. Censorship: Opposing Viewpoints. Opposing Viewpoints Series. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press.

Stover, Mark. "Libraries, Censorship, and Social Protest. American Libraries 25 (November 1994): 913. Online. Dialog. Gale Group Magazine Database (no. 47): IAC Accession Number 15862986. 6 February 2000.

West, Mark I. 1988. Trust Your Children: Voices against Censorship in Children's Literature. New York-London: Neal-Schuman.

Worlds of Childhood: The Art and Craft of Writing for Children. 1990 (rpt. 1998). Ed. by Maurice Sendak and William Zinsser. The Writer's Craft. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co.

Short Book Reviews:

Booklist 67 (January 15, 1971): 423; 67 (April 1, 1971): 661.

Center for Children's Books. Bulletin 24 (January 1971): 80.

Commonweal 93 (November 20, 1970): 199.

Grade Teacher 88 (March 1971): 96.

Hornbook 47 (February 1971): 44.

Instructor 80 (February 1971): 136; 81 (November 1971): 134.

Library Journal 95 (December 15, 1970): 4327, 4341.

New Statesman 81 (June 4, 1971): 781.

Publishers Weekly 198 (November 2, 1970): 53.

Saturday Review 53 (Dec. 19, 1970): 32.

Time 96 (December 21, 1970): 68.

Times Literary Supplement (TLS) (July 2, 1971): 769.

Top of the News 27 (April 1971): 306.

Websites

Amazon.com. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ts/book-customer-reviews/0060266686/qid=951583430/sr=1-39/002-6173505-7501823. Reviews of Maurice Sendak's In the Night Kitchen.

American Library Association, Office for Intellectual Freedom. http://www.ala.org/oif.html. Materials on expurgation, selection policies, and instances of book challenges.

Family Friendly Libraries. http://www.fflibraries.org. "Pro-censorship" organization. Shows interest in "relocating" materials, and is especially opposed to the American Library Association as the leading professional library association.

Focus on the Family. http://www.fotf.org. "Pro-censorship" organization.

Hastings, Wally. "In the Night Kitchen – Maurice Sendak." http://lupus.northern.edu:90/hastingw/kitchen.htm. Page discussing Maurice Sendak's books.

People for the American Way. http://www.pfaw.org. Prominent anti-censorship organization.