In the Night Kitchen is a popular and controversial children's picture book, written and illustrated by Maurice Sendak, and first published in 1970. The book depicts a young boy's dream journey through a surreal baker's kitchen where he assists in the creation of a cake to be ready by the morning. It was a Caldecott Honor recipient in 1971. A young boy named Mickey sleeps in his bed when he is disturbed by noise on a lower floor. Suddenly, he begins to float, and all of his clothes disappear as he drifts into a surreal world called the "Night Kitchen". He falls naked into a giant mixing pot... that contains the batter for the "morning cake". While Mickey is buried in the mass, three identical bakers mix the batter and prepare it for baking, unaware that there is a naked little boy inside. Halfway through the baking process, the boy emerges from the oven, protesting that he is not the batter's milk. To make up for the baking ingredient deficiency, Mickey constructs an airplane out of bread dough so he can fly to the mouth of a gigantic milk bottle.
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| Author: | Maurice Sendak |
| Genre: | Children's literature, Fantasy, Fiction, Speculative fiction |
| Year published: | 1970 |
| Number of editions: | 11 |