Maurice Sendak    (1928- )  
Born in Bensonhurst on 18th Avenue, Maurice Sendak attended P.S. 205, Boody Junior High School and Lafayette High School. A delightful sense of whimsy and delicious style distinguish the career of this best-selling author/illustrator whose works have reached not only book stores and libraries, but also off-Broadway and TV audiences. In 1970 he received the coveted Hans Christian Andersen Illustrator Award. Sendak's trilogy, composed of Where The Wild Things Are, In The Night Kitchen and Outside Over There still welcomes steady streams of readers each year. Brian O'Doherty of The New York Times echoed the sentiments of adult and children fans worldwide when he wrote that Sendak’s work "springs from…the vagrant child that lurks in the heart of all of us."

NEW YORK (JTA) -- Children's book author Maurice Sendak has given $1 million to the Jewish Board of Family & Children’s Services of New York.

Sendak, 82, who wrote the iconic children’s book “Where the Wild Things Are,” gave the money in honor of his life partner, Eugene Glynn, a longtime psychiatrist for the organization.

The money will go toward general operating support, and the organization will name one of its 15 clinics after Glynn, who died in 2007, according to The Wall Street Journal.

"He was very alarmed at the position of children in New York and wanted to be part of that salvation, if that's not too grand of a word," Sendak told The Wall Street Journal about Glynn. "Leading a selfish life is unbearable … what Eugene did to save lives, I am trying to do artistically.