World renown children’s author Maurice Sendak — most famous for penning the popular children’s book “Where the World Things Are” — died early Tuesday morning (May 8) at a hospital in Connecticut after suffering a stroke last Friday.

A writer and an illustrator, Sendak rose to fame with the release of “Wild Things,” and his reputation grew over time as someone with a dark sense of humor and a brutally honest opinion.

Despite the fact that he is considered a children’s author, Sendak said in a January 2012 interview that he doesn’t even like children. “I don’t write for children. I like them as few and far between as I do adults,” he said bluntly.

First published in 1963, “Where the Wild Things Are,” considered to be one of the most popular children’s books of all time, was adapted into a major motion picture in 2009, which is also the same year President Obama read the book to a large group of children at the White House Easter Egg Roll.

Maurice Sendak was 83 years old.

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