Google’s home page must be the most sought after advertising space on the internet, but you’ll never see any advertising on there. What you will see is the odd celebration or dedication, as is the case today with a Maurice Sendak tribute.

Navigate to Google’s search engine and you’ll be confronted with a special animation to mark what would have been the 85th birthday of the legendary Polish author, whose other famous works include In the Night Kitchen and Outside Over There. Google’s animation stars with Max heading over to Where The Wild Things Are, before moving to the In The Night Kitchen universe before ending with the birthday party scene from Sendak's 2011 book Bumble-Ardy. Of course, Where The Wild Things Are will remain his most famous work, especially after the 2009 Spike Jonze-directed film, which landed with critical acclaim.

The tearjerker – scored by The Yeah Yeah Yeahs – brought Sendak’s work to a modern audience, and it didn’t fail to translate. The story sees a boy called Max let his imagination run wild. This takes him on a wild journey, as he encounters monsters in a far-off land before returning to his bedroom to find his dinner waiting for him. It was every kid’s dream, and therefore a huge success.

Born in Brooklyn, to Polish Jewish immigrants, Sendak’s work contains sublte themes of death, loss and mortality – themes that permeate his work due to his proximity to the losses felt by the holocaust. His illustrations were first published in 1947 in a textbook titled Atomics for the Millions by Dr. Maxwell Leigh Eidinoff. He died in 2012 after complications with a stroke.

Maurice SendakSendak played a large role in the film

Spike Jonze
Spike Jonze hit the jackpot with Where The Wild Things Are