SUBSCRIBE
SUBSCRIBE
SLJ Blog Network +
  • 100 Scope Notes
  • A Fuse #8 Production
  • Good Comics for Kids
  • Heavy Medal: A Mock Newbery Blog
  • Teen Librarian Toolbox
  • The Classroom Bookshelf
  • The Yarn
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • About/Contact
  • *Best New Books*
    • Annual Best Lists
  • Reviews
    • One Star Review
    • Nonfiction
    • Toon Reviews
  • Articles
    • Authors
    • Link Du Jour
  • Covers
    • Covering the Newbery
    • Cover Curiosity
    • Unfortunate Covers
  • News
    • Books on Film
    • Morning Notes
  • Newsletter

October 9, 2014 by Travis Jonker

This Librarian Finally Looked at His Copy of ‘In the Night Kitchen’. What He Discovered Shocked Him

October 9, 2014 by Travis Jonker   6 comments

(Someone’s been working on their Upworthy-esque headlines)

Sometimes I don’t know if I should post certain things on this blog. Things that are sort of embarrassing fall into this category. Today I had one of those, but I’m posting it anyway.

SCROLL TO KEEP READING THIS POST

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

I was in the stacks when I passed by our Maurice Sendak section. I’ve done it a million times before, but for some reason this time my eyes landed on our copy of In the Night Kitchen, and I had a thought.

“I wonder…”

Now, if you know anything about the book, you probably know where this story is going. You also know Maurice Sendak’s 1971 Caldecott Honor winner has a controversial history due to the main character’s nudity. K.T. Horning wrote about it in her 2012 article The Naked Truth: Librarians Stood by Maurice Sendak, No Stranger to Controversy for School Library Journal. Horning writes,

I had learned in library school that some librarians had infamously painted diapers on Mickey to avoid controversy.

With that in mind, I decided to take a look at our copy. This is what I saw:

So why is this sort of embarrassing? Firstly, that I haven’t opened our library copy of this book. Secondly that it’s been sitting there censored under my nose for years (we’ve had this book since 1978 – it could have happened at any time) and I didn’t know.

So, K.T., here’s a documented example of a censored In the Night Kitchen. But we’ll be updating our copy soon.

Filed under: Articles

SHARE:

Read or Leave Comments

About Travis Jonker

Travis Jonker is an elementary school librarian in Michigan. He writes reviews (and the occasional article or two) for School Library Journal and is a member of the 2014 Caldecott committee. You can email Travis at scopenotes@gmail.com, or follow him on Twitter: @100scopenotes.

ADVERTISEMENT

Related Posts

February 2023

Notes on January 2023

by Travis Jonker

January 2023

Your 2023 Caldecott Comment Card

by Travis Jonker

January 2023

Who's Published the Most Newbery Winners in the Last 25 Years?

by Travis Jonker

January 2023

2023 Caldecott Medal Predictions

by Travis Jonker

January 2023

The Ten Most Eye-Opening Caldecott Books of All Time

by Travis Jonker

ADVERTISEMENT

SLJ Blog Network

100 Scope Notes

Sydney Taylor Blog Tour: THE TOWER OF LIFE by Chana Stiefel and Susan Gal

by Travis Jonker

A Fuse #8 Production

Abecedarian Movement and Dance: A Q&A with Corinna Luyken About ABC and You and Me!

by Betsy Bird

Good Comics for Kids

Haley Newsome on Unfamiliar | Interview

by J. Caleb Mozzocco

Heavy Medal

What’s Coming in 2023, A Feedback Poll, and Goodbye for Now…

by Steven Engelfried

Teen Librarian Toolbox

Writing Trans Joy in Spite of Everything, a guest post by Edward Underhill

by Amanda MacGregor

The Classroom Bookshelf

The Classroom Bookshelf is Moving

by Erika Thulin Dawes

The Yarn

A Book 25 Years in the Making: Marla Frazee Visits The Yarn

by Travis Jonker

ADVERTISEMENT

Related Articles on SLJ

24 Audiobooks To Encourage Ongoing Activism and Social Justice

15 Short & Sweet Love Stories for Tweens and Teens

Looking for a Book to Read Aloud? These Classics Made the Hall of Fame.

Three Picture Books to Celebrate Black History

4 Middle Grade & YA Nonfiction Titles to Help Heal the World

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Kate Hannigan says

    October 9, 2014 at 2:06 pm

    This is hilarious and shocking at the same time! What a thrill to have a censored version. But also, kind of baffling to think that some prudish book fairy sneaked into your library and added the diaper. Wow!

  2. Sam Bloom says

    October 9, 2014 at 2:22 pm

    First of all: great headline.

    Working for a public library system–a large public library system–I’ve seen this many times, and the funniest part for me is seeing the varying degrees of artistic talent. Some undergarments are well-drawn, some are a bit on the sketchy side. Also, the different media used: pen and ink; pencil; I’ve even a pair of what appeared to be colored pencil skivvies on Mickey in one copy. It definitely makes for a discussion starter during Banned Books Week!

  3. PragmaticMom says

    October 9, 2014 at 6:59 pm

    I like you Upworthy-eque headline title!

  4. Jo-Anne Gibson says

    October 9, 2014 at 9:36 pm

    I’ve been teaching a challenged book unit for a few years now and one of the examples I show my grade 9 students about censorship is Maurice Sendak’s In the Night Kitchen. One of our local elementary teacher-librarians found the same censored version of this book in her school library the same year Maurice passed away. Our local bookstore was celebrating Sendak’s body of work and this prompted the teacher-librarian to take a look at a new copy of In the Night Kitchen. She was sure the book in her school didn’t look like the one she was reading and sure enough, when she checked it out back at her school, she was right – someone and drawn underwear on the boy. It was so well done that you couldn’t even tell. This is only one example of how picture books have been censored in our area so don’t be embarrassed that you missed it. By talking about it with our students they come to realize what a slippery slope challenging, censoring and banning books really is. A great life lesson.

  5. Michael Wayne says

    December 30, 2014 at 10:18 am

    After reading this, I should have known better than to search google-images for “in the night kitchen underwear”. Adding “censored” instead of “underwear” returned less bizarre results.

  6. adrienne says

    December 31, 2014 at 12:56 pm

    Now I’m going to have to go take a look at our copies…

ADVERTISEMENT

Archives

  • Author/Illustrator Blogs

    • Erin Stead Illustration
    • Hey, Rabbit!
    • James Preller's Blog
    • MATTHEWCORDELLBLOGS
    • Mo Willems Doodles
    • The Scop
  • Book Blogs I Like

    • A Book and a Hug
    • A Fuse #8 Production
    • A Kids Book a Day
    • A Year of Reading
    • Abby (the) Librarian
    • Awful Library Books
    • Becky’s Book Reviews
    • Better Book Titles
    • Book-A-Day Almanac
    • Bookends
    • books4yourkids.com
    • bookshelves of doom
    • Bottom Shelf Books
    • Calling Caldecott
    • Caustic Cover Critic
    • Chad C. Beckerman
    • Charlotte’s Library
    • Cheryl Rainfield
    • Chicken Spaghetti
    • CHILDREN’S ILLUSTRATION
    • Collecting Children’s Books
    • Cybils
    • EarlyWord
    • educating alice
    • Finding Wonderland
    • For Those About to Mock
    • Good Comics for Kids
    • Good Show Sir
    • GottaBook
    • Great Kid Books
    • Heavy Medal: A Mock Newbery Blog
    • Hi Miss Julie!
    • Jen Robinson’s Book Page
    • Kidsmomo
    • Maria T. Middleton Design
    • Nerdy Book Club
    • Neverending Search
    • Nine Kinds of Pie
    • One Book, Two Books, Old Books, New Books
    • Out of the Box
    • Oz and Ends
    • PlanetEsme
    • Read Roger
    • Reading Rants!
    • Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast
    • sharpread
    • ShelfTalker
    • so tomorrow
    • The Children's Book Review
    • The Miss Rumphius Effect
    • Uncovered Cover Art
    • Waking Brain Cells
    • Watch. Connect. Read.
  • Library Blogs

    • ALSC Blog
    • Blue Skunk Blog
    • librarian.net
    • LISNews
    • Stephen's Lighthouse
    • Tame The Web: Libraries and Technology
    • Tame The Web: Libraries and Technology
    • Unshelved
  • Follow This Blog

    Enter your email address below to receive notifications of new blog posts by email.

    This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

    This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

    Primary Sidebar

    • News & Features
    • Reviews+
    • Technology
    • School Libraries
    • Public Libraries
    • Age Level
    • Ideas
    • Blogs
    • Classroom
    • Diversity
    • People
    • Job Zone

    Reviews+

    • Book Lists
    • Best Books
    • Media
    • Reference
    • Series Made Simple
    • Tech
    • Review for SLJ
    • Review Submissions

    SLJ Blog Network

    • 100 Scope Notes
    • A Fuse #8 Production
    • Good Comics for Kids
    • Heavy Medal
    • Neverending Search
    • Teen Librarian Toolbox
    • The Classroom Bookshelf
    • The Yarn

    Resources

    • 2022 Youth Media Awards
    • The Newbery at 100: SLJ Celebrates the 100th Anniversary of the Award
    • Special Report | School Libraries 2021
    • Summer Reading 2021
    • Series Made Simple Spring 2021
    • SLJ Diverse Books Survey
    • Summer Programming Survey
    • Research
    • White Papers / Case Studies
    • School Librarian of the Year
    • Mathical Book Prize Collection Development Awards
    • Librarian/Teacher Collaboration Award

    Events & PD

    • In-Person Events
    • Online Courses
    • Virtual Events
    • Webcasts
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise
    • Subscribe
    • Media Inquiries
    • Newsletter Sign Up
    • Content Submissions
    • Data Privacy
    • Terms of Use
    • Terms of Sale
    • FAQs
    • Diversity Policy
    • Careers at MSI


    COPYRIGHT © 2023


    COPYRIGHT © 2023