Maurice Sendak has a new book coming out. He's been dead for five years.

Famed children's book author Maurice Sendak, arguably the most important picture book author in history, and who died five years ago, is apparently channeling his inner Tupac Shakur and releasing work posthumously. (Lest you forget, rap legend Tupac died many years ago, but out of his eleven platinum albums, seven were released posthumously. Now, it seems Sendak wants to be as popular in death as in life as well, too.)

According to Publisher's Weekly, in 1990, Sendak was interested in collaborating with the London Symphony Orchestra for a performance of Leoš Janáček’s Rikadla, a 1927 composition dealing with Czech nursery rhymes set to orchestral music, of which he had drawings.

But Sendak had his fingers in multiple projects at the time. His occasional collaborator, Arthur Yorinks, remembers seeing the drawings and having a brainstorm session with Sendak over the work, and how they could turn it into a book. Alas, Sendak became distracted by those other projects lingering around him, and the drawings never saw the light of day with London or anyone else.

Fast forward to 2016, and Lynn Caponera, president of the Maurice Sendak Foundation, was combing through mounds of Sendak's work to throw out, when she stumbled on the drawings. Presto and Zesto in Limboland, the work Sendak and Yorink brainstormed over, that the London Symphony Orchestra hoped for, was rediscovered--and Sendak's work continues, a la Tupac.

A release date for the fall of 2018, published by Michael di Capua Books/HarperCollins, is planned. No word on whether seven other random "lost" books will be found either, but time will tell.

In the meantime, let's remember Sendak when Stephen Colbert visited him shortly before his death, and revel in the illustrator huffing markers and dropping f-bombs:

The Colbert Report

The Friday Poem: I Cry, by Tupac Shakur

As another week concludes, we end with a random poem. Famous poets, obscure poets, amateur poets, whatever poets--just a poem to cap off the week.


Like this one:  I Cry, by Tupac Shakur

Sometimes when I'm alone
I Cry,
Cause I am on my own.
The tears I cry are bitter and warm.
They flow with life but take no form
I Cry because my heart is torn.
I find it difficult to carry on.

If I had an ear to confiding,
I would cry among my treasured friend,
but who do you know that stops that long,
to help another carry on.


The world moves fast and it would rather pass by.
Then to stop and see what makes one cry,
so painful and sad.
And sometimes…
I Cry
and no one cares about why.

Horton hears a new book: New Dr. Seuss book to be released 24-years after his death.

Theodore Geisel--better known as Dr. Seuss--died 24-years ago, but that hasn't stopped his production.

The Cat in the Hat author and illustrator worked on multiple projects right up until his death, but that means multiple projects remained unpublished--and largely undiscovered--until now.

What Pet Should I Get? will be published on July 28, 2015, a project found in a box of sketches and text that Geisel completed before his death but remained largely unnoticed by his widow until 2013. The book features two characters previously seen in Dr. Seuss's earlier book, One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish. Likewise, at least two other brand new Dr. Seuss books will be released by publisher Random House from the same found sketches and text.

It's kind of like Dr. Seuss is Tupac with these posthumous releases. And I think we all know Dr. Seuss and Tupac were connected down deep.

Phillips Andover Academy has its own sanctioned hip-hop song.

In other news, hip-hop passed away last week after a long battle with lameness. It was 32 years old.

Yeah, it seems the Buffy and Giles crowd over at Phillips Andover Academy made a hip-hop video. Somewhere, Tupac is wondering where it all went so horribly wrong.

I made it to about 1:30 in the video before the throbbing in my head was too much. Having Abercrombie & Fitch rejects tell us how down-to-earth and normal they are gave me indigestion on par with eating bad chorizo.

"Coming to Andover basically enlightened me!" raps one young woman at around 1:10. As my grandmother would say, if you need to tell someone you're enlightened, you're probably not enlightened.

At 1:20, some middle-aged teacher at the school starts dropping beats and knowledge--and that's when I knew rap and hip-hop officially had been laid to rest. In lieu of flowers, please make a donation to the Red Cross.

Best/worst part: the comments on the Youtube page. One person says "It gave me chills."

((rubs temples furiously)) Can't pretentious rich people just stick to country clubs and ruining the economy?