NAKED CAME A STRANGER

Re “Why Mickey Wears No Pants” (June 16):

I enjoyed Maurice Sendak’s “In the Night Kitchen” in part because Mickey was “all there,” so to speak. When I would read it to my young son, it opened up opportunities for him to ask about his body, as well as about dreams and fantasies.

Since my son has an older and a younger sister, he was surrounded by emasculated Ken dolls, had his own genital-free Cabbage Patch “boy” doll, and saw little of anything to reinforce his physiological maleness. So Mickey, in his nude abandon, gave my son one happy image of freedom and maleness in an age-appropriate way.

For anyone to presume to censor that image is a greater obscenity than any that they imagine in the book.

ANDREA ROGERS, BRANNING