The author of bedtime reading classics such as Where the Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak, died on May 8 in a Connecticut hospital after suffering a stroke a few days previously. He was 83. In his lifetime, Sendak wrote and illustrated over fifty children’s books. He collaborated on television shows, movies, and various stage productions. His most famous work, Where the Wild Things Are, written in 1963, was awarded the prestigious Caldecott Medal and was adapted for a film in 2009. He also received the international Hans Christian Andersen medal for illustration and the National Book Award.

Sendak’s work was controversial for its frightening, dreamy, fantastic images and narratives—some iconic, some just plain scary, most unforgettable. His particular style for writing illustrated children’s books cut against the expectations of the oft-stereotyped, safe, warm, and morally uptight genre of children’s bedtime stories. He embraced the controversy and the criticism that followed his work

In a 2009 interview with the Associated Press, he explained his aesthetic regarding children as the subject of his stories: “In plain terms, a child is a complicated creature who can drive you crazy. There’s a cruelty to childhood, there’s an anger. And I did not want to reduce Max (the main character from Where the Wild Things Are) to the trite image of the good little boy that you find in too many books.”

According to The Detroit News, Sendak said his characters “were like me as a child, like the children I knew growing up in Brooklyn—we were wild creatures.”

Watch a heartfelt video interview with Maurice Sendak at The Detroit News and read more appreciation of Sendak’s books, life, and legacy at The Huffington Post.

Photograph by Mary Altaffer/AP