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Some things are not for the faint of heart. Toddlers hitting pots and pans are one of them. While not fit for the faint of heart they make an entirely satisfying museum visit.

Small children sliding into the chicken soup cauldron over and over and over.

"One at a time," valiantly cries my mother.

Stray adults picking up footlong grains of polystyrene rice and surreptitiously placing them back into the soup.

"Now what do you tell the lady," and the child who hit my hand with a round soft onion mutters "Sorry" and races straight back to slide into the soup again. A slightly older boy snaffles his own onion and practises his soccer moves.

It turns out the guides have all known me all my life. Goes without saying, really. This is the Jewish Museum in Melbourne. One wonders how her child missed out on Sendak as a child when I seemed to have an interest. "Read the notes on Sendak's family," she encourages me. "His stories were my family stories too. He lived our life."

Not my life, I wanted to tell her, but her daughter was the celebrant for my first cousin's wedding and her son is close friends with my oldest sister and besides, I like her. So rather than argue whose life is in the pictures and stories, I reflect on the wonderful way Sendak handles forever-hatred. The price of being Jewish. Today Sendak crept up near Primo Levi in my little list of people I admire.

(Now you have to wait for part 2.)

A Sendak visit #2

Sendak was far more closely hit by Holocaust than I was. All his father's family was murdered. Siblings, cousins, everyone. Destroyed in the Shoah. Sendak grieves, but he also admits he has managed to find happiness. How he dealt with the tragedy of being a twentieth century Jew is one of the sub-texts in the Melbourne exhibition.

He dealt by defiantly refusing to forget. He pays homage to his family by using their images in his illustrations of "Zlateh the Goat and Other Stories". Anyone who reads the book will see the face of his grandfather. This grandfather he never met. He learned of his grandfather's death on the day of his own barmitzvah. It's an ironic tragedy sometimes, being Jewish.

I slowly met Sendak's lost family and in the background the soundscape continued. Raucous sliding and banging and playing. A father reading "Chicken Soup with Rice" to his son. Life continuing, and Sendak's lost family part of that life through Sendak's art.

"One at a time," says my mother, the perfect museum guide. She is encouraging and friendly. Downstairs in a cabinet is the hat of her Uncle Max, who died fighting over France. Sendak's life isn't my life.

Sendak's father moved to New York around the time my more-recent family moved to Australia. This was a few years after my great-great-grandfather had told his children to flee. So some of Sendak's story is my story.

Some of it is far more bleak. On show is a postcard of the village where Sendak's father's family lived. Everyone bustling in the main square. Twenties dress. The faces are interesting and full of life. It's a good postcard.

Every single one of those people had death sentences. They just didn't know it. Like Sendak's grandfather.

Maurice Sendak's childhood was so very Jewish-American. Despite all the fury that interntional history brought to bear, he lived a local life. His mother did occasional work for the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. "She knew all about That," Sendak notes in the explanation of his childhood. "That." Such an American event. Lives lost and a realisation for the need for safety in the workplace. If Australia has an equivalent to that fire, I'm not sure I want to hear about it.

While I read about the Triangle Shirtwaist factory and about the effect of Wall Street upon Sendak's family fortunes, two children find the costumes. Wild Things costumes. Instead of dancing and playing and roaring, a parent poses them carefully and turns fun into photo opp. Instead of sailing Max's boat - right there in the middle of the floor, luring me - they sit in front of a wall-picture and smile vapidly.

(Part 3 soon - trust me and read to the end)

Viewing Sendak #3

The children didn't wriggle out of the clutches of photography and sail away into the wild lands. And around me are the guides exclaiming how like their family photos his are. I counter with the history of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire and its effect on labour history. Honours are even.

I just noticed one costume sitting on the side, forlorn. I wish one of the children would wriggle out of the clutches of the chicken soup and into that costume and then get into Max's boat and sail far, far away. It is so wrong that Max's costume should sit on a peg, alone and forlorn.

Mum moves away from the soup and tells me how she makes herself look like Sendak's relatives who appear in Where the Wild Things Are. "Look at my eyes," she said. She put on glasses. "Now look at how big my eyes have become." I am too polite to ask my mother if she also has a trick for making her teeth look sharp and ferocious. Maybe I just don't want to know.

Finally a child has dressed up as Max. A boy. He comes to well above my knees. The costume drags on the ground wherever he goes. he is very, very happy. Max's friend cavorts in the crazy mirror, proving he doesn't need to be Max to be wild. I sit quietly and hope that no-one can see I am just like that on the inside.

A teabreak and I discover Rosie. I also discover that Rosie is really Kaaron Warren's daughter. I hope she has read "The Sign on Rosie's Door" and that she recognises herself.

And finally I wandered to the rest of the museum. In the shop I bought a Maurice Sendak poster and some postcards of a Melbourne synagogue. I am very happy to send them to friends. Maybe for interesting comments? Maybe if you can convince me you have a dream since childhood that these items would fill?