Just read this again - a very old friend. I can remember reading this book when I was a small boy; I think I even thought that some of these characters might be living under my bed when the lights went out! Have read this book to small children and am always amazed at how they connect with the characters - a childhood treasure!

4 Stars for Where The Wild Thing Are (audiobook) by Maurice Sandak read by Peter Schickele.

This was a fun memory from my childhood.

4 ⭐

No real moral to this one, as far as I can tell. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Sort of written more FOR kids than AT kids which I can dig. After all, we don’t ALWAYS need to be learning lessons, do we?
Sometimes, kids might need to just let their imaginations run wild and imagine flipping the bird at the authorities in their life, in their case, those dull old parents. Wild thing, am I? You don’t know the half of it; I’m the King of the Wild Things!
The start of Michael Jackson’s ‘Black or White’ came to mind. You know where the kid’s pumping his music and the Dad’s not having a bar of it:
….
Kid: Dad, this is the best part, come on!
Dad: No, turn it off now!
Kid: No, this is the-I want to listen to it, OK?
Dad: You've got things to do tomorrow, turn it off now!
Kid: Yeah, right. Too late. Sure. Eat this.

An ode to the rebellious, dreaming spirit in all of us. Pure fun. Pure rumpus!

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.

n  n    About Men  n
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This beautiful book has been in the family for nearly 40 years and has been enjoyed by three generations (so far), including me!

"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 have read the story of Max about 1,000,000 times and my kids love it too. The illustrations are magical and the text is beyond wonderful. It is one of the most fun and rewarding books for a parent to read to a kid (lots of fun making dancing sounds and monster sounds!) and features joyful plot. A must!

My kids weren't so keen on this beloved children's story but I loved the illustrations, although, the story was a little bit disturbing if you pay close attention to what the little boy is doing or threatening to do. Hmmm?

Probably the mostly beautifully and strikingly illustrated book I’ve ever seen. I first had this read to me when I was around five years old, probably on an episode of “Play School”. I still own it today.

It’s an exploration of the concept of rage told from a child’s POV – the emptiness and ultimate fruitlessness of it all, a cautionary tale about the potential loss that stems from unchecked anger. Nothing like it had been done before. It was brave, and it was brilliant.

I’m an angry person. I always have been, always will be. And though I’m a firm believer in the power of rage, and how it can be channeled into positive and brilliant endeavors, I always have to be mindful of where it can lead if left unchecked. I am Max, and whether it’s loud and screaming or tucked away in some tiny corner, there is always a Wild Rumpus going on inside my head.

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.

Is it wrong that this is still probably my favorite book?

“I’ll eat you up, I love you so”

Was rereading this book as one does at 2:34 AM for a tattoo reference and was struck by how beautiful of a book it truly is. We lose ourselves in growing up, but inside all of us there is a wild thing run by a wild little child that never left that magical island. Somehow I think all of the fun I have had in this life was spurred on by that little wild child who never cared about what she looked like or what others thought. As I get sicker, I wish I would have let her take over more often