In the night kitchen (original title: In the Night Kitchen)

Description

A wealth of fun that connects cooking and imagination.
A masterpiece that won the Caldecott Honor Award (1971)

〈In the Kitchen at Midnight〉 shows the influence of Mickey, whom Sendak enjoyed imitating since childhood, in that it uses animation techniques, names the main character as Mickey, and contains humor, witty dialogue, and a world of ingenious imagination. This is a work that has received great praise. This book is a picture book themed around childhood experiences, the most in Sendak's trilogy, and is filled with a strange charm that provides a path to quench children's desires through imagination.
The main colors of this picture book, unlike the flashy animation picture books of the Mickey style that Sendak loved so much, are calmly done in light brown and green tones, like a faded photograph or a blurry memory. When you open the first page, a small, dark screen shows a child curled up in bed who has not yet fallen asleep. When the dark tones of the bedroom are removed, a large and bright kitchen emerges. It is a unique technique of Sendak that naturally breaks down the boundary between reality and fantasy. In this work, as in “The Land of Monsters,” which is considered one of the greatest masterpieces of this century, the narrow and stuffy real world is captured on a small, blank screen, and the world of fantasy is so large that it takes up the entire page.
The temporal background of this picture book is a night that takes children to the world of dreams, the world of the unconscious. Night is a time when imagination can freely unfold, and at the same time, it is a time to be free from the interference of adults. On the other hand, it is a time when children are forced to go to bed early in order to be good children, and it is also a time when adults enjoy their own fun behind closed doors.
What do children think when they see changes that occur overnight, when they are unable to withstand the adultery of adults, or when they fall asleep out of sleepiness? When I woke up in the morning and rubbed my eyes, I saw beautiful sprouts sprouting on the onions, a beam of light was shining brightly through the dark window, and round dewdrops were forming on the grass blades. I'm so curious that I want to stay up at night for a day and see what happens. However, at night, without fail, she becomes drowsy, and her mother tells her to go to sleep, turns off the light, and goes out. What is the world that a child named Mickey sees without falling asleep in the middle of the night? What makes Mickey go to bed with a satisfied smile on his face even after his terrifying adventure of escaping just before being baked in the oven?