That was my absolute favorite book when I was a kid, I made my Mom read that too me every night for what I seem was years. I loved it! This book, by Maurice Sendak became a classic long ago. It was the winner of the 1964 Caldecott Medal as the "Most Distinguished Picture Book of the Year," it was first published by HarperCollins in 1963. When the book was written, the theme of dealing with dark emotions was rare in children's literature, especially in picture book format for young children. For some reason I do not remember the book being dark or dealing with dark emotions, I remember it being about a great adventure story about redirecting anger to better pursuits. Some things I was desperately in need of as a young kid, as my Sister if you don’t believe me. It has been over 40 years and that book is still popular, why I ask.
I do not think it is the impact it had on the field of children’s literature but had more to do with the impact of the story and the illustrations on kids. The book was based on the consequences of one little boy's mischievousness and that was, and in some ways still is, ME. It all starts with Max dressing up in his wolf suit doing all kinds of things he shouldn't be doing. He is chasing the dog with a fork when his Mom scolds him and calls him a "WILD THING!" Max, in turn, gets so mad he shouts back, "I’ll eat you up!" This little outburst results in him being sent to his bedroom without any supper. I have been there, done that and wore out that damn tee shirt. I was a horrible kid and maybe I liked this book because it was the story of my life. No Dad present in Max’s life, no Dad present in my life. Max was a hellion who did whatever he wanted to do whenever he want to do it, hummmmm, that has a familiar ring to it. Well, once in his bedroom his imagination runs amok. He is able to transform his bedroom into an extraordinary place, with a forest and an ocean and a little boat. A boat he takes to a land full of Wild Things, just like him.
All of these monsters look and sound very fierce, but Max is able to tame them with a single glance. Even the monsters realize that Max is the most wild thing of all and when they do they make him their king. Max and the wild things have a great time creating a rumpus until Max wants to be where someone loves him. That days fantasy ends when he smells his dinner. Despite the wild things' protests, Max sails back to his own room where he finds his supper waiting for him. This part of the story is telling for me, Max is in conflict, conflict with his mother AND with his own anger. HE is still angry when he is sent to his room but he does not continue getting into mischievousness, instead he gives free rein to his anger through fantasy. He is then able to come to the decision that he will no longer let his anger separate him from the people he loves and that love him. Young Max is engaging character, his actions, from chasing the dog to talking back to his mother are very realistic and very similar to my childhood, poor Timmy the dog – sorry Karen. His and my emotions at that time are also very realistic. It seems it would have to be common for kids to get angry and fantasize about what they could do if they ruled the world and then calm down and consider the consequences. This character is someone that most kids can readily identify with.
I think this book is a GREAT lesson in the power of imagination, it can take you anywhere and it becomes even more important in adult life as well, at least in my opinion. Even though it may seem cloaked initially, there are strong themes of unconditional parental love – Max’s Mom never stopped loving him, no matter how bad a hellion he was. I feel Max was a great model of a boy being able to draw on his imagination. I still to this day think this is a fantastic trait to have, it allows us to just be by ourselves and be happy. We also learns some lessons as well, when he misbehaves around the house and is sent to his room without any supper he in turn sends the wild things to bed without their supper. It could be said that perhaps his behavior toward the monsters meant he understood why he was being punished, making it a touching gesture when his dinner is waiting for him in his room. There was a reason the book won the Caldecott Medal, the writer’s giant monster characters are iconic. While they are described as scary in the book, their faces and lumbering frames make them appear almost jovial. As you read along you can almost imagine the room shaking when you watch them playing (wild rumpusing) in the forest. Max and his new friends dance and play through some of the most whimsical, enchanting, and unique artwork in children's literature.
I can relate my ability to deal with the anger of my youth, and adulthood to some degree, to learning from Max and maybe my Mom learned a thing or two as well in how to deal with me. What an empowering, psychologically accurate parable about a child learning that his anger, while sometimes overwhelming and scary, can be safely expressed and eventually conquered. In a world where yelling and meanness and hooliganism is the norm, maybe, just maybe where the Where the Wild Things Are should be required reading for all adults. The message we should all take away from this book is, unconditional parental love is reassuring to kids and a perfect ending to a story does not hurt either. Even if the story does not have a perfect ending, one can learn to imagine a perfect ending. If one is unable to imagine the perfect ending to the story of our lives, how then are we to get to that perfect ending? The book is, in my opinion a subtle masterpiece, a masterpiece of story, writing, and art that will have kids asking for repeated readings, I sure did. The colorful language and a world of imagination make this wild adventure a fun learning experience about how to get through the days.
Well that brings me to the movie, WOW! The movie was WAY different than I remember the book to be. I am 45 and some of those characters scared me, not like the lovable characters that were illustrated in the book. When I first heard Carol, voiced by James Gandolfini, all I could think of was Tony Soprano strangling that guy in a Christmas tree lot while traveling with his daughter to visit some college. That was not what I wanted to see when I looked at the lovable Wild Things. There were a lot of great voices in the movie, Bride and I always try to guess the voices in cartoon movies or movies where you can not see the people and we did pretty good on this one. I thought the movie missed the point though – it was way more scary than I think the book was intended to be. If I had kids I would read the book to them but I do not think I would let them watch the movie. The two were NOT the same. I am not sure what kind of ratings the movie got but for me it was a dud, not worthy. I can’t imagine taking a 40 some odd page book and turning it into a full length feature movie – not enough material to stay true to the original story. But for me that is the point of it, the story of the book is fantastically concise and tells such a great story, with both words and pictures.
Love the book, did not like the movie, what did you think?
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