Definitely one of the best reasons to work in the newspaper business is the perks: A couple of weeks back, I scored tickets to the Tony Kushner/Maurice Sendak operetta Brundibar at Berkeley Rep through the good folks at j. — I even got to bring my favorite date, my (almost) 6 year-old son. One might think children and opera don’t mix, but this is one special opera (and of course, one special kid.)

Brundibar was originally staged in Prague at the Jewish boys’ orphanage in 1942, but before its first few performances, its composer, Hans Krása, and most of the cast were rounded up by the Nazis and sent to Theresienstadt, the Nazis “flagship” concentration camp in Czechoslovakia. There Krása was put in charge of the inmates “musical entertainment,” managing to produce 55 performances of his operetta with a constantly rotating cast (mostly children, shipped to Auschwitz.) Being the sick bastards they were, the Nazis filmed the performances and used the footage as propaganda to show Red Cross workers its “model ghetto” with its “happy” prisoners.

The story is fairly simple: two children named Pepicek and Aninku run to town to fetch milk for their mother who is sick in bed. They have no money, but try to work the street by singing for coins. Unfortunately, they’re drowned out by the child-detesting Brundibar, who has intimidated all the grown-ups into spending their money on his bone-rattley songs. The kids find help from a sparrow, a cat and a dog, who in turn gather up all the other children in town and together, they run the untalented dominator from the square. However, it’s the subtext of the small and vulnerable defeating the tyrannical that must have been at least a little bit sastifying to Krása and his doomed cast. Certainly, today’s critics see the play as an allegory for Hitler and the helplessness of the Jews.

Its reincarnation in 2003 as a children’s book, with rhymes by Tony Kushner and drawings by Maurice Sendak is a joy (more on that in a bit) and the full-fledged stage performance based on the book was truly magical. The sets, designed by Sendak, come straight from the mind that created the place where the wild things are, and Kushner’s libretto swept the story along with a staccato pulse. At 40 minutes, it was compact and rich, and may have made a lifelong opera fan out of an (almost) 6-year-old.

We purchased the book that same night (independent bookstores that stay open late are rare gems) and have been reading it every evening since (even my 2-year-old follows me around the house carrying it — her favorite part is the talking dog.) Every time the bully skulks away both kids cheer and high-five each other, but Brundibar’s warning at the end always that “bullies don’t give up completely” gives me the creeps. You could read a lot into this story if you wanted to, about being Jewish and assimilated and thinking the bad people have been vanquished. But I like that my kids are learning that bullies must be defied and fought, and that people will help if you only ask.

As a parent, you get used to reading the the same freakin’ book over and over (and over and over) that eventually, you stop looking at the pages and read it monotone while thinking about what bills need to be paid or the last time you saw your husband naked. But with Brundibar, I keep finding new things in Sendak’s illustrations and wondering about them, like the tiny beggar children pulling at Pepicek and Aninku, who already describe themselves as “small children.”

But what’s been keeping me up at night, poring over my children’s favorite book is this: There’s a mogen david (Jewish star) in almost every scene, which is terrifically confusing when you come to the second to last page when mommy finally gets her milk — and there’s a HUGE HONKING DEAD JESUS on the wall.

Bill Moyers wondered about this, too, and asked Sendak about in an interview.

Sendak replied, “Some people were baffled that in the last big picture of that book, there’s a crucifix on the wall of the children’s house. Everybody assumes the hero and heroine are Jewish and the mother is Jewish. They’re not. They’re not. That was my point. Those kids were in the wrong place at the wrong time. And all children were in the Holocaust. Everybody was in the Holocaust. So, I made sure my hero and heroine were not Jewish children. That was too easy. That was too easy.”

I dunno, that just seems like an evasive answer. Maybe I’m taking the symbolism too far, but where was the crucifix at the beginning of the book? It sure seems like Sendak is implying that mommy was “saved” not only by milk, but by the Christian martyr. This lends an even creepier note to Brundibar’s farewell message — that perhaps the Jews will never be safe from tyrants like Hitler, that conversion is the only way.

Or, I’ve just read the book too many damn times. Maybe it’s time to break out “Goodnight Moon” again.