In the Night Kitchen Review

I've just read it out loud while recording it for YouTube because it's been part of Banned Books Week, and yes, to get people attracted to my upcoming web series, I have to do Season 0 aka the pilot season starting with this book. This reminded me of my very own childhood so much, I recently learned about the dedication page saying, "For Sadie and Philip". That was the author's parents because they were part of the Lost Generation or something. On the other hand, to make a children's book with a dedication page saying, "For David and Cammie", I guess they were boomers, for they are godly and were raised Catholic. I was born normal and a millenial, but then was diagnosed with autism at a young age in case you don't know me. I understand how this book was made is because the author Maurice Sendak took inspiration from the roaring '20s, mostly from Nemo. (No, not the fish y'all know of. The boy in bed!) I also learned way back in the early 20th century, Nemo was printed originally as comic strips. For example:

www.comicstriplibrary.org

See? Does that look antique to you? I wonder if Little Nemo in Slumberland is either in public domain, or is it copyrighted? From October 5, 1905 - July 23, 1911, Little Nemo in Slumberland was first published under New York Herald. It was renamed to The Land of Wonderful Dreams and ran under New York American from 1911 - July 26, 1914. When the original creator is back to the Herald, the title was switched back to normal and for the last time, it ran from August 3, 1924 to December 26, 1926. Little Nemo definitely is the public domain character since January 2005 in the EU.

I have yet to watch the anime film of Little Nemo for the review afterwards.

Now, onto the story.

It all starts with Mickey waking up to the thump of something. He shouted, "Quiet down there!" and then, he magically fell down into the night kitchen, even though he was all of the sudden at some point, near the beginning of the fall, the clothes were removed, exposing his heavenly naked body. In the night kitchen, he fell into the batter, and all of the bakers were chanting while stirring up until it's really smooth like icing. While they were about to something something something something I dunno, the grey smoke puffs up and Mickey goes off to save the day by making a dough airplane and flew to the milk bottle. Mickey dives down with the liquid measuring cup and he reached the surface to pour the milk into the batter. The bakers were very satisfied with the work of foodies. When morning comes, Mickey acted like a rooster and yes, he went back to bed, knowing it was all a dream. We could bake the morning cake every breakfast because we're bookworms!

The challenge: "The book upset many librarians and adults because its young protagonist, Mickey, was depicted in the nude. Many librarians censored the book by painting diapers over the boy’s genitals, and in some cases, the book was even burned."

In the 1990s, it was the number 21 in the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of the Decade, but went down constantly to #24 in the 2000s.

I don't have to worry about diapers/shorts/jeans because I could see him being depicted naked as a child and I spotted him still today. It's still alive in my mind! Thank the LORD God for preserving it for future generations to come! These censors was, is and will be depressed.

The review: This book is such a classic and it's very good, some of you will know what went wrong when it comes to censorship. I guarantee you should check it out at your local library to discover what some of you were missing, and for your child(ren), explain why is it challenged with caution because the world's such a scary place to be, but safer in some locations where the freedom remains strong.