One of my favorite scenes in the picture-book annals is the wild rumpus , from Where the Wild Things Are . Sendak needed to invent faces for the beasts, so he used the images of his various uncles and aunts, who had frightened him in his childhood. They would visit and say, "I'm going to eat you up." This seems to inspire a crucial scene in " The Simpsons ," during which Patty and Selma visit Bart . It's Bart's birthday ("Radio Bart"). Adult life is brutal; it can crush you. Then there is the task of gift-giving; you have to try to worm your way into the imaginative life of a little child and choose a perfect object to add to the child's world. Patty and Selma forget to make an effort. Bart's gifts are the following: a cactus , a suit , and a label maker . (The oddest gift I ever received was a memoir, Christ Stopped at Eboli , about Italian fascism . I had never expressed interest in Italian fascism or in Christ. Receiving this ...