"Where the Wild Things Are" is one of the books I remember vividly from my childhood. While I'm not sure I would call it a "favorite" (it didn't completely resonate with me as some books did, nor was it a "cozy" sort of story that I loved reading over and over), there was something utterly fascinating about it... I found the Wild Things so intriguing, I at once admired and felt ashamed of Max's behavior, I felt bad that he had to leave the Wild Things but yet happy that he went home, that his mother forgave him and still loved him, and that his dinner was "still hot".

I felt much the same reading this as an adult. But, I appreciated it in different ways, too. Some days, I think we all feel like a "Wild Thing"--some days, I wear my "wolf suit" and life seems to be havoc around me. I love that Max was able to channel his feelings in a positive way, using imagination to have a wild time with the Wild Things, yet also to calm them (his feelings), and to realize that he would rather have safety and comfort and love.

The illustrations are amazing! The sparse words, paired with the illustrations, create a pitch-perfect story, compel you to turn the page, and to immerse yourself in Max's adventure. The bedroom transforms in such a wonderful way, The Wild Things are sooo memorable, Max's expressions are so telling... I just loved all of it!

We read this for the Children's Book Group January theme for the Picture Book Club, "Children Going on Adventures and Exploring". Max's adventure, into his imagination and his feelings, is one that I think I will appreciate for many years to come and look forward to sharing with my future children, little "Wild Things" that they may be at times, someday.

i STILL have this book!

I loved this so much, I begged to star in it in an elementary school play. I won the lead role but had to share it with another classmate as we were doing 8 performances and couldn't be out of classes for rehearsals that often! I got to be rowdy... even though I was the quietest child possible. And who doesn't love to act like an animal, parade through the jungle and revisit their roots! But what do we love even more... our family and those who love us. Sometimes we can be too much and need to done it down. And that's the lesson this little one teaches us.

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I didn't want to add any children's books - but this one was just too cool...

Update: Saw the movie - the book was much better!

Awn this book... it subtly carries the essence of childhood.

I didn't realize this was The Odyssey for so long. It seems so obvious now! It's the Cyclops part. Polyphemus.




Which makes Max's mom a stand-in for Penelope, keeping his dinner hot for him as he sails "in and out of weeks and almost over a year," and that's a little weird but there's always something a little weird about Maurice Sendak, isn't there? Have you read In the Night Kitchen? It's fuckin' weird, man. None of this knocks Where the Wild Things Are any lower on the list of Great Children's Literature, where it is #1.

It's everything, right? The way Sendak writes - everything is a little effortlessly different. He starts in media res, "The night Max wore his wolf suit..." I like to evolve the way I say wild things - in the beginning I put the emphasis like "wild Things," and then I switch it up to the Hendrixian "Wild things" as we build to this:

n  
n  “And now,” cried Max,
“let the wild rumpus start!”n

Which honestly, can you think of a better sentence in all of literature? I'm being serious! I can't. This is my favorite one.

You ever notice how the pictures get bigger? Max making mischief of one kind and another is just a little picture on the page, but by the time the wild rumpus gets going it's full page spreads, there's not even room for any words. And those creatures! You've probably heard how Sendak modeled them on his family. Look how awesome they are.


Which one is your favorite? I like the hippie in the back.

And of course it's great because, like the best children's books, it takes children seriously. Max is being an asshole. Dude chased the dog with a fork, what the fuck. His mother punishes him and he learns zero lessons, he just plays in his room until she gives in. That's a plot a kid can dig! Children can tell when a book is written for them and when it's written at them. This is for children. It has magic in it, and so do they.

Where the Wild Things Are

tWhat's the moral of this story? Some might say Sendack's work is a testament to the unbridled powers of a child's imagination. Others would posit that the true virtue of Where the Wild Things Are stems from the reversal of a timeless power dynamic in which monsters frighten children. In Sendack's carefully rendered world, monsters submit to the whims of children, which appears to suit Max well enough. I assume it works well for other children as well. If you can't convince snot-nosed brats that monsters don't exist, at least you can convince them that monsters are friendly. Children, after all, are like neo-conservatives. You can only reason with them on their own delusional terms.

tHere's the summary:
t
tMax is an asshole. His mother calls him a monster, so he flies into a cannibalistic rage. She sends him to his room without dinner, which doesn't seem to be the best of ideas since he just threatened to eat her f*&% face off, but whatever. This book isn't heralded as a classic because of its promotion of high-quality parenting techniques. I'll get to that in a moment.

tI couldn't help but notice the parallels between the story of Max and the early years of Siddhartha. Both starve themselves until they hallucinate. But the similarities end there. Siddhartha realizes that his approach to transcendentalism is misguided, and he eats once more. Max, on the other hand, starves himself for a night and trees grow in his room. Then he proceeds to get on a boat and fast for an entire year, at which point he starts seeing giant monsters.

tThe fact that these monsters cater to his delusions of grandeur--cowering in his presence and sharing his flesh-eating inclinations--lets us know that Max has externalized his fantasy world through strict fasting. On one hand, I respect this kid. I can rarely push through four days without wheat before the weekend starts and I pack in 80lbs of corporate-grown meat and bleached bread. On the other hand, what the hell is this book teaching our children? I'll tell you.



That middle finger means "I was raised on Sendak!"


tAside from self-imposed starvation, the book teaches children to give up on their aspirations as soon as the slightest temptation arises: "he smelled good things to eat so he gave up being king." It sends the message that those who love you would just as happily rip your entrails out and feast upon them as soon as you decide to leave: "Oh please don't go-we'll eat you up-we love you so!" And, finally, it shows them that parents' threats are temporally limited, and eventually love will cause them to cave in. At the end of the story, Max returns to his room "where he found his supper waiting for him." Way to be strong, mom. Pushover.
t
I bet Satan loves this book.

Adorable childhood storybook that never grows old....

This is a young children's picture book that depending on what edition you have will be roughly 50 pages.

I don't think there's much value in casting a critical eye on it, luckily for me as I don't have one, but I think we can speak on personal effect and the lasting power of what we read. I honestly think it's silly when people critique the children's books of their grandfathers as if we even live in the same world we did even 20 years ago. We don't, and young people are just way more advanced in every way, be it through technology and the hope every generation is better than the previous.

The one thing that hasn't changed is that we all still dream pretty much the same.

This book, written decades before I was born, was something I'd go back to on library day in early elementary school, as a young kid in Napoli (Naples), Italy.

As a teenager, now in the United States, I vividly recall being in a bookstore picking up some comics and running into a copy, flipping through it, and acknowledging in some way this is where current me started. You can call it just enjoying art, sequential art, or maybe something more. I was kind of a bad kid who was doing teenage things so I won't admit to having revelatory thoughts.

Fast Forward, decades after that I'm sitting in my home on the northern coast of Sardinia and I hear there is a gallery of Sendak original work that's going to be displayed in New York, and an auction of his work at Sotheby's. I get in my car, drive to Olbia airport, get on a plane, land in JFK, and spend an amount that elementary school me couldn't fathom and teenage me would think isn't wise even if I could fathom it (because more beer), and adult me doesn't give af because it's as if having a piece of you own origin story.

Have flaws, don't judge at first glance, be wild, trust in something, and dream big.

The last one was huge for me. There is a song by The Lox that has a line "Adults used to think I was scheming but I was dreaming..." and it always stuck with me through difficult times and perceptions both coming from and at me. So as I left a villa on the Mediterranean coast to jump on a plane to buy art some guy threw down several decades before I ever realized how rich of a childhood I had wearing the most what are those? shoes and just learning how to dream. and realizing dreams realized aren't the only good dreams. It's good enough to just dream.

‘Where the Wild Things Are’ is a very simple but very effectively told story of a journey through the imagination of a child’s mind. There are very few lines of narrative here as very few are needed – it is the wonderful illustrations (by author/illustrator Maurice Sendak) which have secured the books deserved reputation as a true classic.

I hadn’t realised until very recently that ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ was written more than 50 years ago and it’s a testament to the book that it feels so contemporary as well as so timeless, so long after its initial publication.

Cute. I loved the illustrations.

I never read this book as a child; in my immigrant family, the childhood tales were of Akbar and Birbil, not Max and the Wild Things.

With the movie coming out, and so much talk about it, I started feeling like maybe I was missing something. But I also felt trapped, because what I had already missed out on reading this book as a child. Reading the book now means I'll know what all of you are talking about, but the childhood memories of relating to Max just can't happen. I've missed something I'll always miss.

So the other day I bought the book, and that night, Craig read it to me before we went to sleep. And though I'll never have the experience of reading this book as a child, I fell in love with this book in an entirely childish way.

I asked Craig to read it again. That story again. Just once more.