In the Night Kitchen

Incredibly creative and fun, kids will love looking at the pictures themselves. Some consider this book to be a coloring book.

Another well-illustrated book by Sendak that unfortunately has a lacking story. This short story follows Mickey and his adventure with the bakers in the kitchen at night. Caution, contains nudity.

Mesmerized with the illustrations in this wonderful little book. When my children were young, they were amazed that I was liberal enough to allow them to watch a naked baby boy float through the night kitchen. A favorite.

This book was about a little boy named Mickey. He had trouble sleeping one night and he felt through the night into the light of the night kitchen. Where all the bakers of the night were there baking. They accidently stirred Mickey into the batter. Then Mickey formed the dough into a plane and flew

Show More

away. Striaght into his bed.

I thought this was a great book because I enjoyed all the illistrations. I relate to this book because somethings at night I just can't seem to fall alsleep then I finally fall alsleep and the next thing I know its morning and I dreamt a wonderful dream.

The way I could use this in my classroom one day is to have all the children tell me about one of their coolest dreams. Have them right a short little story about it.

Show Less

Sendak summons the spirit of fifties food-labels and inner-city toil to make this doughy, delirious dream of nocturnal kneading and narrow escapes.

The story teaches how dreams are extensions of our imagination. It also teaches that people, such as bakers, work through the night while we are sleeping just so that we can have freshly baked cakes when we wake up. This book beautifully illustrates every child’s dream of tumbling into an

Show More

imaginary place. Illustrations are drawn as cartoons. The text is written in all upper case letters similar to a comic book or graphic novel. In the Night Kitchen is a 1971 Caldecott Honor book. It is frequently challenged because of Mickey’s nudity and is listed as #25 on the American Library Association’s 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990-2000.

Show Less

It was a silly story but probably won't be something that stays with me. I didn't like or dislike it. This is probably a good book for me to read with my nephews. Younger kids will like the rhythm of the words. Each page has detailed drawings. I was much more interested in the buildings than in

Show More

Mickey's nudity. The buildings have kitchen utensils on them and words commonly found in pantries on the containers of baking ingredients. They are very fanciful.

Show Less

The most challenged picture book is about a little naked boy who falls into a world called the night kitchen, as he makes his way home he has to help the bakers bake a cake or be made into a cake himself!

A book I read for the assignment on frequently-challenged books, this one was interesting to mostly due to the illustrations. The story is fine but a little too out-of-the-ordinary for me. However, the comic-book appeal of the drawings makes the book fun. The book faces challenges because Sendak

Show More

shows the young boy naked a couple times...even though the anatomy displayed lacks any detail. The rest of the art, though, cannot be challenged. The three bakers are Oliver Hardy lookalikes while the background incorporates ordinary kitchen utensils blended into the cityscape. The images create the dream-like feel of the story and make this book worth a look.

Show Less

VERY weird! I have no idea why this was written

An extremely fun and imaginative book by Maurice Sendak, author of 'Where the Wild Things Are'. This book features a young boy named Mickey, and the dream adventure he falls into during the middle of the night.

A boy was disturbed by some noise while going to sleep. He went to go see what the noise was and fell into a bowl in the night kitchen. He was baked with the cake and made an airplane out of dough to fly up to catch some milk for himself and the bakermen.

I did like the pictures and the font of the

Show More

letters. I think the pictures of the naked little boy is unappropriate, because readers at this age understand the concept of nudity. The nudity takes away from the point of the book.

I would ask the students what bedtime snake they get at home. I would ask them to write in their journal what bedtime snack they would like to get instead. I would ask them to go home and make a dessert with their parents.

Show Less

This is the story about Mickey who heard something in the night. He falls out of his clothes and into the night kitchen where bakers are busy baking. Mickey ends up saving the day by getting the bakers milk that they are missing. After his adventure he winds up back in his clothes and back in bed.

Show More

This picture book is filled with amazing graphics and vibrant colors. The rhythm of the story is very unique and fun. The backgound illustrations are full of detail. Reads almost like a young graphic novel.

Show Less

I typically LOVE Maurice Sendak books, and Where the Wild Things Are is one of my all-time favorites. While the illustrations in this one were pretty neat, the story was just so-so to me. I expect Sendak books to charm the socks off of me, but it just didn't happen this time. Oh well.

In the Night Kitchen is a whimsical, mystical story showing a journey through the imagination of a little boy. The over all story is a bit scary, especially the "baking" the kid in the oven part. Cooking is fun but I don't want to introduce the wrong idea to children that oven is a safe place to

Show More

play. But ths book has amazing collage-like artwork, a million little fine artistic details, and mystery to burn.

Show Less

The illustrations in the book might be the only book I would say is better than Where the Wild Things Are. Sendak is only to be outdone by himself:) I was saddened and disturbed to read and hear about a campaign to have this magical story removed from elementary school libraries because of the

Show More

naked main character Mickey. It is a wonderful fantasy picture book and besides, who if not elementary age children have seen naked little kids?!?

Show Less

In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak seems innocent enough. The protagonist, 3 year old Mickey, dreams of floating out of his pajamas into a night kitchen, a food making fantasy land with buildings of food containers and three comical identical bakers who resemble Stan Laurel with a Hitler

Show More

mustache. This stream of consciousness narrative in words and images transports the reader into the silly and ridiculous world of a three year old’s dreams of bakers trying to bake him in a “Mickey-cake”. Covered by cake batter, Mickey escapes by jumping into bread dough and kneading and shaping it into a plane that he flies away in. The bakers demand milk for the morning cake, so Mickey dives into a giant bottle of milk, loses his skin of cake batter, and pours the milk into the bakers’ cake batter. After the bakers bake the cake, Mickey crows from the milk bottle and falls back into his pajamas and bed. This children’s dream fantasy has been controversial and frequently challenged for Mickey’s nudity and sexual innuendo. However, the intended readers of this fantasy are young children who do not see what the adults see. Most giggle when they see Mickey naked just because male nudity in children’s books is so uncommon that it’s just cause for commotion. Sendak’s subcontexual references to the Holocaust are completely lost on children, as is the identity of the bakers. What the young reader will see is the fantasy world Sendak has created with pen, ink, and watercolor illustrations of Mickey flying through illustration panels as if in a dream. Sendak’s illustration style for In the Night Kitchen is atypical of his oeuvre; he dispensed with his trademark hatchmarks in favor of a more graphic rendering of pen, ink, and watercolor to create giant comic-like panels that even include speech balloons. As a result, In the Night Kitchen creates a food making fantasy land with characters and events that just like real dreams, are extraordinary and absurd.

Show Less

A silly tale of how Mickey gets milk for the bakers so there will be bread and cake for breakfast

The illustrations were very entertaining. I like that they looked somewhat like a comic book with the text boxes and speech bubbles. I must admit it was a little strange that Mickey lost his clothing in this dream and that he ended up in a milk jar.

Appropriate grade level for this story would be PreK to 4th grade, this is such a cute story I think the older grades would really enjoy it. This book has received the Caldecott Medal. This story is about a little boyed names Mickey and his dreamy adventures through the night as he discovers how

Show More

the local bakers prepare their delicious morning cakes. Uses in the classroom for this book would be to have the children do a cooking activity about their favorite morning treats. They could also set up the dramatic play area to be a store/kitchen and have them pretend to prepare their favorite foods. They could also have a day where they talk about their favorite kinds of food and maybe bring in a snack each day of that week and have it for snack during the day.

Show Less