A review by juushika
Higglety Pigglety Pop!: Or There Must Be More to Life by Maurice Sendak

3.0

A dog who has everything except contentment runs away to find it. I love Sendak's art here, detailed crosshatched ink still marked by his odd proportions and uncanny faces. The tone is effectively absurd--it's not realistically grounded, it's not a dream, it's just a dog packing a suitcase and leaving home to work as a nanny: unapologetic nonsense. I expect narratives about discontent to punish their protagonists--and while there is a sense of the universality, and thus senselessness, of discontent, the abrasively happy ending is a welcome subversion. This is what might have made the book succeed for me as a kid; coming to it as an adult reader, it's effective but not especially complex. This isn't on par with Where the Wild Things Are, but it's one of Sendak's stronger books--or perhaps I'm just adjusting to his style!