Maurice Sendak
Recognized in the Creative Minds Montessori 2026 Teacher’s Choice list.
Maurice Sendak is one of roughly one hundred authors whose work was selected by the Montessori-certified teachers at Creative Minds Montessori for the 2026 Teacher’s Choice list — 120 books chosen across four reading stages, from first lap-reads to first chapter books. The selected book was chosen for how precisely it meets children at a real developmental moment. This recognition cannot be bought: no author or publisher paid to appear on our lists, and we take no commission on any book sale.
About Maurice Sendak
Maurice Sendak (1928–2012) was born in Brooklyn to Jewish immigrant parents from Poland and illustrated over one hundred books across a sixty-year career. He won the 1964 Caldecott Medal for Where the Wild Things Are, the 1970 Hans Christian Andersen Award and the 1983 Laura Ingalls Wilder Award.
As a child he had health problems that kept him confined to bed, and he later said his childhood was marked by the deaths of members of his extended family in the Holocaust, which introduced him early to the idea of mortality.
Also by this author: In the Night Kitchen · Outside Over There · The Nutshell Library
Official legacy site: www.sendakfoundation.org
Selected for the 2026 Teacher’s Choice list
Part of The Best Children’s Books by Age, chosen by the teachers at Creative Minds Montessori in Frisco, TX.