In an interview earlier this year with Comedy Central Talk Show Host Stephen Colbert, Sendak offered his unvarnished opinion on ebooks. “F___k Them. I hate those ebooks. They cannot be the future. They may well be. I will be dead. I won’t give a sh_t.”
Though the Colbert interview was played mostly for laughs, Sendak wasn’t kidding. His books, including his newest, Bumble-Ardy, are not available on any digital platform.
Sendak’s distaste for ebooks was not a secret. In a Guardian interview he was no less adamant, “I hate them. It's like making believe there's another kind of sex. There isn't another kind of sex. There isn't another kind of book! A book is a book is a book."
The author was not totally opposed to all things digital. There were multimedia CD-ROMs that served as companions to his books, including ones for Little Bear: "Little Bear Preschool Thinking Adventures." There was a Where the Wild Things Are Nintendo Wii game, though I suspect its existence was Sendak succumbing to pressure to help promote the misbegotten film version of his book. The 2009 film also spawned Facebook and iPhone apps.
That there are no ebooks for Where the Wild Things Are, Night Kitchen or any of Sendak’s other works makes me no less of a fan. My son and I read In the Night Kitchen every night for years. He would giggle at the prose and pictures (the book was often banned because it showed the boy’s genitals).
Still, I worry that with Sendak gone, his legacy may fade along with him unless future generations can access his fanciful tales via colorful ebooks. No, I would never suggest that Where the Wild Things Are belongs on an E Ink Kindle or Nook. Not only are all the images designed for a large-format, landscape page, but the lack of color would sap the life from the imaginative tale of a boy and his vivid imagination.
Tablets are, obviously, another story. I think In the Night Kitchen would look fantastic on the latest Apple iPad’s retina display. The detailed imagery could be a bit cramped on the 7-inch Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet or Amazon Kindle Fire, but I’m sure the interactive versions could be designed to guide young readers through the detailed imagery -- zooming in and out -- as they read along.
I asked Sendak’s publisher, HarperCollins, if Sendak had ordered his books never be published in ebook form -- even after his death. At press time, they were still checking. The author was, of course, not alone is his ebook hatred. The Corrections scribe Jonathan Franzen famously lauded print books' permanence over ebooks, which might not be readable on a device that's vulnerable to water.
Books are really only semi-permanent things. You can find both a lot of new and used copies of Sendak’s books on Amazon, but over time copies will become worn, unreadable and, eventually, disappear (especially as collectors start to hoard classic editions). Plus, Sendak’s works are now competing for space with a steady stream of celebrity children’s books (another trend Sendak hated). Parents raised on a steady drip of celeb-saturated TV and news may actually think these books are the new classics and never read Sendak’s quirky-yet-beautiful works to their children.
As I see it, an ebook version of Where the Wild Things Are is crucial to securing Sendak’s legacy for future generations. It’s not how Sendak would’ve wanted it, but it’s how I, a true fan, believe it must be.