Read it and weep:

Maurice Sendak, the children's book illustrator and author whose unsentimental approach to storytelling revolutionized the genre and whose best-known tale was the dark fantasy "Where the Wild Things Are," has died. He was 83.

Sendak, who also was a set designer for opera and film, died Tuesday at a hospital in Danbury, Conn., his friend and caretaker Lynn Caponera said. He had suffered a stroke on Friday, she said.

He had already been proclaimed "the Picasso of children's books" by Time magazine when, in his 30s, he wrote and illustrated "Where the Wild Things Are." It became one of the 10 bestselling children's books of all time.