Outside Over There

Sendak, M. (1981). Outside Over There. New York, NY: Harper Collins. 

Ida's father is out to see. Her mother is upset. She watches over her sister. One night while she is playing her wonder horn to put her sister to sleep, goblins come in and kidnap the baby. They replace her with an ice sculpture. Ida doesn't notice that her sister has been substituted with an ice baby. Not even while she is holder her. When she does realize that her sister has been snatched, she dresses like her mother and goes out into the world to look for her. She steps out of the window backwards, and this apparently prevents her from seeing things correctly. She miraculously hears the voice of her father telling her to turn around. She does and finds the goblins. Only they are not goblins, they are babies themselves.  Ida plays her horn and the goblin babies begin to dance unwittingly. They end up dancing into a stream to what I can only assume causes them to drown. The only baby left that didn't get upset from the horn was Ida's sister.  She picks up the baby and they both return home.

This was a weird story. I can not see any reason to share it with young children. There is no positive message to be gained from it. In fact it may upset some really young readers or confuse them. That is what it did to me. Confuse.  I am left to wonder why this was selected as a Caldecott Honor book.