But back to Kenny's Window.
The story is about a hypersensitive (my assessment) boy named Kenny who has a vivid dream in which a four legged chicken in a magic garden that is half day and half night gives him a note with seven questions on it, and tells him that if Kenny can find the answers to the questions he can come live in the garden. Kenny magically transports the note into the awake world, and spends the rest of the book finding the answers.
Since the questions, in a typical Sendakian way, are thoroughly absurd, the answers, though logically consistent, hang in the delicate balance of the dreamscape where things that are magical are simply taken for granted, as being totally normal.
This is what I love the most about this book. When I read it I feel the same way as when I talk to a child who has a disorder in which they have trouble differentiating reality from fantasy. I encountered quite a few of those children in my life, both very young and somewhat older, and whenever I was allowed into their reality and informed how things work there, I always felt like I was allowed into someplace sacred, untouched, absolutely innocent like the Garden of Eden. I always found it very hard to stay in the reality of the adults who were helping those children to disengage from their imaginary world and not to cross over into the child's.
Apart from that aspect of the book I love the (unintentional?) references to my other favorite books: I definitely feel a bit of a Little Prince in there - Kenny is a child, but is also a king of the world he lives in, operating independently of adults, making risky decisions with all the resolve, innocence, and wonder of things childhood. Also to H. C. Andersen - the tin soldiers that come alive and offer advice to Kenny are pretty much a direct quote from the Steadfast Tin Soldier and some other tales in which toys come alive and interact.
Reading Kenny's Window from start to finish is an incredibly satisfying experience. I find that one only needs to do once a year or so, and it stays with you for a very long time, lingering, and having some of its wisdom appear at times when it is needed.
