Best YA & YYA Lit 1970 (10)
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October 29, 2019
For several years now, I’ve argued — here at HILOBROW, as well as in the UNBORED books I’ve co-authored — that the Sixties (1964–1973) were a golden age for YA and YYA adventures. This post is one in a series of 10 identifying my favorites from 1970.
Maurice Sendak’s children’s dream adventure In the Night Kitchen.
A young boy named Mickey wakes up in the night, hearing a thumping sound coming from below his room. “Quiet down there!” he shouts — before falling out of his clothes and into the Night Kitchen, where enormous bakers (who look exactly like the silent-film comedian Oliver Hardy, though some commentators insist that they resemble Hitler) accidentally stir him into the batter for a cake and pop him into an oven. The artwork is miraculous: vintage-looking, with fond references to Winsor McCay’s early 20th-century strip Little Nemo In Slumberland, while also evoking Claes Oldenburg’s Pop Art “soft sculptures” of saggy hamburgers and baggy slices of cake. This is visual storytelling at its finest; as a child, I wanted to sink into the book’s oversized pages the way that Mickey sinks through the bedroom floor. Unlike Little Nemo, Mickey is an action hero — he isn’t at the mercy of his own subconscious. He pops out of the cake batter, shapes it into an airplane, and flies to the top of a skyscraper-like milk bottle towering over the Night Kitchen’s cityscape. Diving boldly into the milk, which dissolves his batter-jumpsuit, he delivers to the bakers the crucial ingredient they’d lacked for their cake. Then it’s back to bed. An empowering lucid dream, and a fine escapade.
Fun facts: Sendak would later explain that Mickey’s escape from the oven is a reference to the Holocaust. Because of Mickey’s (innocent, exuberant) nudity, the book remains one of the most frequently challenged books in American libraries. Winner of the 1971 Caldecott Honor.
Let me know if I’ve missed any adventures from this year that you particularly admire. Also, please check out these additional lists.
BEST SIXTIES YA & YYA: [Best YA & YYA Lit 1963] | Best YA & YYA Lit 1964 | Best YA & YYA Lit 1965 | Best YA & YYA Lit 1966 | Best YA & YYA Lit 1967 | Best YA & YYA Lit 1968 | Best YA & YYA Lit 1969 | Best YA & YYA Lit 1970 | Best YA & YYA Lit 1971 | Best YA & YYA Lit 1972 | Best YA & YYA Lit 1973. ALSO: Best YA Sci-Fi.
The 200 Greatest Adventures (1804–1983). THE OUGHTS: 1904 | 1905 | 1906 | 1907 | 1908 | 1909 | 1910 | 1911 | 1912 | 1913. THE TEENS: 1914 | 1915 | 1916 | 1917 | 1918 | 1919 | 1920 | 1921 | 1922 | 1923. THE TWENTIES: 1924 | 1925 | 1926 | 1927 | 1928 | 1929 | 1930 | 1931 | 1932 | 1933. THE THIRTIES: 1934 | 1935 | 1936 | 1937 | 1938 | 1939 | 1940 | 1941 | 1942 | 1943. THE FORTIES: 1944 | 1945 | 1946 | 1947 | 1948 | 1949 | 1950 | 1951 | 1952 | 1953. THE FIFTIES: 1954 | 1955 | 1956 | 1957 | 1958 | 1959 | 1960 | 1961 | 1962 | 1963. THE SIXTIES: 1964 | 1965 | 1966 | 1967 | 1968 | 1969 | 1970 | 1971 | 1972 | 1973. THE SEVENTIES: 1974 | 1975 | 1976 | 1977 | 1978 | 1979 | 1980 | 1981 | 1982 | 1983. THE EIGHTIES: 1984 | 1985 | 1986 | 1987 | 1988 | 1989 | 1990 | 1991 | 1992 | 1993. THE NINETIES: 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | 1997 | 1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003. I’ve only recently started making notes toward a list of Best Adventures of the EIGHTIES, NINETIES, and TWENTY-OUGHTS.