Where the Wild Things Are

I wondered after the movie if I'd come back to this and find it a bit too precious, too Spike Jonezy, too obscurely new world order, one of those things you don't have a choice about liking or risk being somehow anti-childhood, shunnable, howling alone to yourself that they don't know that Steve Jobs is monetizing their nostalgia or their whimsy somehow if only you could prove it, you crazy. But nope! This is the best, and Emmett loves it, and I may be a crazy, but you know who else is a crazy? My son is, and Max is too, and all the monsters on Monster Island. Let's rumpus!

This is one of those books that really shouldn't be as good as it is.... it's rather simple, random, and ambiguous..... but, it's also cute, lovable and endearing. What can I say... I love it as much as my children do. Maybe it's the wonderful illustrations....maybe it's pity for poor Max, who's Mother unfairly sends him to bed with no food.... maybe Maurice Sendak is just a genius. Whatever the reason, it just works beautifully.

Such a classic story, that I love returning to again and again as I get older and older. Not my favorite of all time, but it's like mom's home cooking... always a comfort when you need it most. Max's imagination is much like mine... drifting into worlds of my own creation, suited specifically for my own desires and longings... too bad we always have to return to our bedrooms at the end of it. At least we both have our mom's home cooking to greet us when we get back. Every little kid knows what it's like to get lost in their imagination, and this book encapsulates that perfectly.

Most reviews of Where the Wild Things Are do not focus on Maurice Sendak’s sexual orientation. And why should they? Max’s story is not about being gay or being straight. It’s about being little and feeling angry, then feeling big with the power of your anger. It’s about how that power eventually feels scary and exhausting and you want to be welcomed back and loved for being, once again, small. Sendak gives Max the chance to act out the wildness inside in a way that is not at all cute or kid-sized, but is actually wild. He could have been afraid of the wild things as they “roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth” but instead he commands them to “BE STILL!” and they “called him the most wild thing of show more all.” In contrast to the frenetic energy of Max’s “wild rumpus” with the monsters Sendak describes Max’s homecoming simply and reverently. Max sails “back over a year/and in and out of weeks/and through a day/and into the night of his very own room/where he found his supper/waiting for him/and it was still hot.
Sendak has said several times that the book is about family, and specifically that the wild things were a take on the loud, cheek-pinching relatives that would descend on his house. But Where the Wild Things Are may be more about the relatives you never see at all - the parents. As novelist Brent Hartinger points out in his review of the recent documentary “Tell Them Anything You Want – A Portrait of Maurice Sendak” Sendak did not come out as gay until he was eighty. “His parents’ inability to accept his being gay — not to mention his being an artist — is part of why Sendak says in the documentary that he ‘hated’ them. He says they never wanted to have kids in the first place and were terrible at parenting, giving him a miserable childhood…Sendak told the Times that he lived with the same man, psychoanalyst Eugene Glynn, for 50 years, until Glynn's death in 2007. But he never told his parents he is gay and, while they were living, was terrified that they might find out. ‘I don't think I ever stopped beating myself up about [being gay],’ he says in the documentary.” The loneliness that Max feels, the longing to be at home may have been very real to Sendak, not just during his childhood but throughout a lifetime of hiding his personal life from his parents. But the absolution summed up so neatly in Max’s still hot supper, that - more than any monster or voyage - may be the real fantasy behind this classic book.

As librarians, why is it important to know that Maurice Sendak (or Ian Falconer, Louise Fitzhugh, James Howe or Jacqueline Woodson) are gay? Well, you could argue that it’s not important, most of the time. But sometimes readers, whether for an assignment or just because they are interested, may request works by gay authors. Librarians should be able to easily find books in their collection that fit the criteria. The time to be aware of some possible answers to that question is not while the phone is ringing and you have three patrons in line, but as you read and learn about authors from reviews, radio stories and flap copy. If you are making a display of books by openly gay authors it does not do to leave off books by authors who are not just famous gay authors, but famous authors, period. Characters like Olivia, Harriet, Bunnicula, and Locomotion are, like their authors, not just part of one community, but widely known and widely loved.
Sendak, Maurice. Where the Wild Things Are. New York: Harper & Row, 1963. Print.

Hartinger, Brent. “’Where the Wild Things’ Author Maurice Sendak Revisits Monsters in New HBO Documentary.” AfterElton. Logo, Oct. 13 2009. Web. Mar 21 2010. show less

Where the Wild Things Are is one of those stories - like much of the work of Dr. Seuss - that is a treasured memento of my own early reading childhood, and as a result, excruciatingly difficult to subject to any kind of meaningful analysis (would "it's genius!" suffice?). So deeply embedded is it, in my memories of childhood, that it seems almost perfect to me, and utterly impervious to criticism.

With a rather free-form text - Sendak's sentences tend to tumble along, in a rushing accretion of thoughts that, despite their seeming disorganization, build flawlessly toward the final page - and brilliant engraving-style artwork, this book perfectly captures a child's willful obstinacy, when being punished (something with which I was show more intimately acquainted, as a girl), and the healing balm provided by the imagination, during such turbulent incidents. Childhood, despite the sincere desire of many that it should be otherwise, is not all sweetness and light. Rather, it is often a time of terror, as the young person contends with a world that is on a different, and far larger scale than herself; and sometimes also of rage, at the discovery that life, and the people in it, will not always (in fact, will rarely) be governed by our will. This isn't to say that this is all that childhood is, but I think it is certainly a significant part, and a necessary one, in the maturing process. And Sendak, a true picture-book pioneer, captured that to perfection here!

I do not know, despite my love for it, to whom I would recommend Where the Wild Things Are. To young children who love imaginary (or not) voyages? To kids who resent being punished, and want a way to express their frustration, all while being assured that at the end, they will still be loved? To fans of fine engravings in general, and Sendak's work in particular? To anyone interested in the genre of picture-books? Yes. To all of these, I think. show less

This modern fantasy picture book is a classic for a reason. I absolutely love it. First, the illustrations do what should really be done in a picture book, which is give details that aren't included in the text. For example, the text doesn't say what "mischief" Mac made in the beginning, but from the illustrations we see that he built a fort and chased his dog. Another reason I love this book is the writing. The text purposefully includes run on sentences that are spaced across multiple pages which kept me very engaged. For example, the first sentence goes across 5 pages. The big idea of this book is to use your imagination but you will always find your way home.

Pretend wolf Max gets a little too rambunctious in his solitary play, so his mother sends him to bed without his supper. In Max’s imagination, his room turns into a jungle full of wild beasts who frolic wildly with him until he tires and turns into a calm and hungry little boy.

As a child, my brother and I didn’t play wildly indoors as Max does in the book. Running and yelling were outdoor activities for us. I have no memory of reading this book as a child, but if I did, I must not have related to Max because I couldn’t picture myself in his shoes.