In the Night Kitchen is a popular and controversial children's book by Maurice Sendak. It was published in 1970.

Plot summary

A young boy named Mickey is sleeping in his bed when he is disturbed by noise on a lower floor. Suddenly, he starts to float and loses his clothes as he falls into a surreal world called the Night Kitchen.

He falls into a giant mixing pot that has the batter for the morning cake. While Mickey is buried in the mass, a number of bakers, who each resemble Oliver Hardy, mix the batter and prepare it for baking while unaware at there is a boy in it. Just when the bakers are about put it in the oven, Mickey emerge protesting that he is not the batter's milk.

To make up for the baking ingredient deficiency, Mickey (now wearing a parka like covering of dough on his body) constructs a working airplane to reach the mouth of a giant milk bottle. Using the plane, he flies up to the bottle's opening and dives in. After briefly reveling being in the liquid as his covering disintegrates, he pours the need milk to the bakers who joyfully finish making the morning cake.

With the dawn breaking, the naked Mickey crows and slides down the bottle to magically return to his bed, with everything back to normal beyond the happy memory of his experience.

Controversy

The book, which features a young prepubscent boy innocently galivanting fully naked, has been one of the most challenged books in recent North American history. The book has been banned in various areas, and there is a rumour that in other places it has been re-touched and edited to include "diapers" on the illustrations of its young hero. This may, however, be an urban legend. (In the Night Kitchen regularly appears on the American Library Association's list of "frequently challenged and banned books," including listing #25 on the "100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990-2000." ^*)

Children's books