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 &quot;Where the Wild Things Are,&quot; has died, May 8, 2012. He was 83. Sendak, who also was a set designer for opera and film, died Tuesday at a hospital in Danbury, Connecticut, his friend and caretaker Lynn Caponera said. He had suffered a stroke on Friday, she said. (Jim Mendenhall/Los Angeles Times/MCT) Photo: Jim Mendenhall, McClatchy-Tribune News Service