by Moe Zilla

Created on: February 23, 2010

It was two years after "Where the Wild Things Are," but now Maurice Sendak turned to simply drawing the illustrations for two very old Mother Goose rhymes. Sendak was just 37 years old when he finally unveiled "Hector Protector and As I Went Over The Water" in 1965. It's one of Sendak's funniest books, and it reads almost like a comic strip. While the poems may have been simple, Sendak turns them on their head by drawing a very contrary child who doesn't want to follow the storyline!

For example, when the poem announces that Hector Protector was dressed all in green, Sendak draws exactly the opposite. There's a boy in a white night gown, who flees as his mother tries to dress him in a green jacket! "No!" shouts the boy, as a crow flies into the picture who's also shouting "No." But when the mother forces the boy into his jacket, the crow begins mumbling a different word - "Ho." And when the boy is finally dressed, the shaggy crow simply mumbles "So!"

Then the poem continues, announcing that Hector Protector "was sent to the queen".  But as the boy sets off with his toy sword, he first announces that "I hate the queen." Sendak decided to take a simple nursery rhyme and make it into something original, according to the book's jacket.  "There is little in these verses to suggest the settings, the characterizations, the unforeseen twists and turns of Mr. Sendak's fantastical picture-stories."

There's a lion and a snake, but they're no match for the sassy child. (He bops the lion on the head with his sword, and wraps the snake around it as a decoration.) "The queen did not like him, nor did the king" the poem contributes, while Sendak illustrates the unpleasant scene. (The snake is hissing at the queen, while the lion licks the king like an over-sized dog.)

"So Hector Protector was sent back again..." the poem concludes. And with Sendak's illustrations, that's now perfectly understandable!

There's even less of a story in the next poem - "As I Went Over the Water". But Sendak turns it into something surreal and dreamlike, with the introduction of another mischievous boy. "As I went over the water, the water went over me," the poem explains - but Sendak's drawing supplies the reason: the boy's ship is being swallowed by a scaly green monster! The boy swims past the human-sized monster, and acts out the next verse of the poem.  "I saw two little blackbirds sitting on a tree."

The poem contains only one more verse. ("One called me a rascal, and one called me a thief. I took up my little black stick and knocked out all their teeth!") But Sendak's drawings make the poem into another story of a boy triumphing over strange creatures.  In the background, the monster ultimately regurgitates the boy's ship. And in the final drawing the two crows have even joined it to serve as his ship's mate!

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