The Best?

I hadn't planned to post anything this week, but after reading this book, I just thought I had to make a comment. And, as you know, I usually only comment on the good books that I read, but I am making an exception in this instance

I just finished reading In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak. I decided to read this book because it was on a list of the Top 100 Picture Books from School Library Journal. Why it was on this list (#18!!!), I may never know. Because I read it and I just don't agree.

The book, for those of you who don't know, is about this little boy named Mickey, which I guess reminds the author of the word "milk." Mickey is sound asleep in his bed when he hears some loud noises. Somehow he falls out of his bed... falls down, down, down... coming out of his clothes... and falling into the hand of the cooks in the night kitchen. These cooks place the naked child in a cake batter and start mixing him in because they need milk. The still naked child escapes into the bread batter and rises to the Milky Way to get milk for the cake. He gets the milk, everyone celebrates that we will have cake in the morning, and Mickey goes home and back to bed.

Does nobody else find this story more than a little disturbing? First, why did the boy have to lose his clothes in the story? Was that at all necessary to the plot? Second, doesn't anybody else care that the cake these people would be eating had come into contact with naked skin? Maybe my germophobe tendencies are just a little too strong because that grosses me out. And, yes, I know it is just a kids story and it was a dream sequence and I am probably taking this too seriously, but I do believe that this was the most disturbing picture book I have read in a while.

And let me just be clear here: It is not the nakedness that bothers me. Not at all. It is the nakedness next to food that creeps me out. In my mind, these two things should not be mixed... in fact, they should never come into contact with each other, even in theory.

What made people nominate this book for the top 100 picture books? I just don't understand.