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Where the Wild Things Are
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Where the Wild Things Are
Where the Wild Things Are is a 1963 children's picture book written and illustrated by American author and illustrator Maurice Sendak, originally published in hardcover by Harper & Row. The book has been adapted into other media several times, including an animated short film in 1973 (with an updated version in 1988); a 1980 opera; and a live-action 2009 feature-film adaptation. The book had sold over 19 million copies worldwide as of 2009, with 10 million of those being in the United States.
Sendak won the annual Caldecott Medal from the children's librarians in 1964, recognizing Where the Wild Things Are as the previous year's "most distinguished American picture book for children". It was voted the number one picture book in a 2012 survey of School Library Journal readers, not for the first time.
The story focuses on a young boy named Max who, after dressing in his wolf suit, wreaks such havoc through his household that he is sent to bed without his supper as punishment. Max's bedroom transforms into a jungle environment, and he sails to an island inhabited by monsters called the Wild Things. The Wild Things try to scare Max, but it is to no avail. After stopping and intimidating the creatures, Max is hailed as the king of the Wild Things and enjoys a playful rumpus with his subjects. Finally, Max stops them and sends them to bed without their supper. However, to the Wild Things' dismay, he starts to feel lonely and decides to abdicate and return home. The creatures do not want Max to go, and they throw themselves into fits of rage as he calmly sails home. Upon returning to his bedroom, Max discovers a hot supper waiting for him.
Sendak began his career as an illustrator, but by the mid-1950s, Sendak had started writing and illustrating his own books. In 1956, he published his first book for which he was the sole author, Kenny's Window (1956). Soon after, Sendak began work on another solo effort. The story was supposed to be that of a child who, after a tantrum, is punished in his room and decides to escape to the place that gives the book its title, the "land of wild horses". Shortly before starting the illustrations, Sendak realized that he did not know how to draw horses and, at the suggestion of his editor, changed the wild horses to the more ambiguous "Wild Things", a term inspired by the Yiddish expression "vilde chaya" ("wild animals"), used to indicate boisterous children.
Sendak replaced the horses with caricatures of his aunts and uncles, caricatures that he had originally drawn in his youth as an escape from their chaotic, weekly visits to his family's Brooklyn home. Sendak, as a child, had observed his relatives as being "all crazy – crazy faces and wild eyes", with blood-stained eyes and "big and yellow" teeth, who pinched his cheeks until they were red. These relatives, like Sendak's parents, were poor Jewish immigrants from Poland, whose remaining family in Nazi-occupied Europe were killed during the Holocaust while Sendak was in his early teens. As a child, he saw them as "grotesques".
When working on the 1983 opera adaptation of the book with Oliver Knussen, Sendak gave the monsters the names of his relatives: Tzippy, Moishe, Aaron, Emile, and Bernard.
In Selma G. Lanes's book The Art of Maurice Sendak, Sendak discusses Where the Wild Things Are along with his other books In the Night Kitchen and Outside Over There as a trilogy centered on children's growth, survival, and fury. He indicated that the three books are "all variations on the same theme: how children master various feelings – danger, boredom, fear, frustration, jealousy – and manage to come to grips with the realities of their lives". Critics have noted that Sendak uses the book's physical form as a storytelling device, with Max's imagined world expanding from a small picture book to a wide landscape that stretches beyond the edges of the page. Fundamental to Sendak's work for over fifty years is his trust in the validity of children's emotions.
Dr. Kara Keeling and Dr. Scott Pollard, both English professors, assess the role that food plays in the book, arguing that food is a metaphor for Max's mother's love based on the idea that Max comes home to a "still hot" supper, which suggests that his mother "loves him best". Going along with this, Mary Pols of Time magazine wrote that "[w]hat makes Sendak's book so compelling is its grounding effect: Max has a tantrum and in a flight of fancy visits his wild side, but he is pulled back by a belief in parental love to a supper 'still hot', balancing the seesaw of fear and comfort".
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Where the Wild Things Are
Where the Wild Things Are is a 1963 children's picture book written and illustrated by American author and illustrator Maurice Sendak, originally published in hardcover by Harper & Row. The book has been adapted into other media several times, including an animated short film in 1973 (with an updated version in 1988); a 1980 opera; and a live-action 2009 feature-film adaptation. The book had sold over 19 million copies worldwide as of 2009, with 10 million of those being in the United States.
Sendak won the annual Caldecott Medal from the children's librarians in 1964, recognizing Where the Wild Things Are as the previous year's "most distinguished American picture book for children". It was voted the number one picture book in a 2012 survey of School Library Journal readers, not for the first time.
The story focuses on a young boy named Max who, after dressing in his wolf suit, wreaks such havoc through his household that he is sent to bed without his supper as punishment. Max's bedroom transforms into a jungle environment, and he sails to an island inhabited by monsters called the Wild Things. The Wild Things try to scare Max, but it is to no avail. After stopping and intimidating the creatures, Max is hailed as the king of the Wild Things and enjoys a playful rumpus with his subjects. Finally, Max stops them and sends them to bed without their supper. However, to the Wild Things' dismay, he starts to feel lonely and decides to abdicate and return home. The creatures do not want Max to go, and they throw themselves into fits of rage as he calmly sails home. Upon returning to his bedroom, Max discovers a hot supper waiting for him.
Sendak began his career as an illustrator, but by the mid-1950s, Sendak had started writing and illustrating his own books. In 1956, he published his first book for which he was the sole author, Kenny's Window (1956). Soon after, Sendak began work on another solo effort. The story was supposed to be that of a child who, after a tantrum, is punished in his room and decides to escape to the place that gives the book its title, the "land of wild horses". Shortly before starting the illustrations, Sendak realized that he did not know how to draw horses and, at the suggestion of his editor, changed the wild horses to the more ambiguous "Wild Things", a term inspired by the Yiddish expression "vilde chaya" ("wild animals"), used to indicate boisterous children.
Sendak replaced the horses with caricatures of his aunts and uncles, caricatures that he had originally drawn in his youth as an escape from their chaotic, weekly visits to his family's Brooklyn home. Sendak, as a child, had observed his relatives as being "all crazy – crazy faces and wild eyes", with blood-stained eyes and "big and yellow" teeth, who pinched his cheeks until they were red. These relatives, like Sendak's parents, were poor Jewish immigrants from Poland, whose remaining family in Nazi-occupied Europe were killed during the Holocaust while Sendak was in his early teens. As a child, he saw them as "grotesques".
When working on the 1983 opera adaptation of the book with Oliver Knussen, Sendak gave the monsters the names of his relatives: Tzippy, Moishe, Aaron, Emile, and Bernard.
In Selma G. Lanes's book The Art of Maurice Sendak, Sendak discusses Where the Wild Things Are along with his other books In the Night Kitchen and Outside Over There as a trilogy centered on children's growth, survival, and fury. He indicated that the three books are "all variations on the same theme: how children master various feelings – danger, boredom, fear, frustration, jealousy – and manage to come to grips with the realities of their lives". Critics have noted that Sendak uses the book's physical form as a storytelling device, with Max's imagined world expanding from a small picture book to a wide landscape that stretches beyond the edges of the page. Fundamental to Sendak's work for over fifty years is his trust in the validity of children's emotions.
Dr. Kara Keeling and Dr. Scott Pollard, both English professors, assess the role that food plays in the book, arguing that food is a metaphor for Max's mother's love based on the idea that Max comes home to a "still hot" supper, which suggests that his mother "loves him best". Going along with this, Mary Pols of Time magazine wrote that "[w]hat makes Sendak's book so compelling is its grounding effect: Max has a tantrum and in a flight of fancy visits his wild side, but he is pulled back by a belief in parental love to a supper 'still hot', balancing the seesaw of fear and comfort".