Where the Wild Things Are is a ten sentence picture book about a little boy named Max who was too wild and sent to bed without supper. While incarcerated in his room, he dreams up a magical land where other Wild Things live. He becomes their King, and they have a great time for a while, but eventually, Max becomes lonely and misses living in a place where people love him. So he sails home from his imaginary island and wakes up to his dinner, still hot, sitting in his room.
The plot of the movie version of this book had to be extrapolated, A LOT. Turning a ten sentence book into a feature length film is no easy task, and upon viewing it, I was confused to say the least. Virtually the only thing that remained of the plot I'd read a thousand times over was an angry little boy named Max, a fictional world, and some vaguely recognizable monsters. Beyond that, the movie also included some very complicated drama between the monsters, a new boyfriend for Max's mom, a huge, cylinder shaped home built from twigs and mud for all the monsters, throwing of dirt clods for fun, some owls that the monsters all seem to hate and same very scary scenes where the monsters threaten to tear one another limb from limb.
This book was written well before my time, but it has been a beloved classic for decades. I think I really fell in love with it when a little boy in the daycare I worked in during college fell in love with it. He wanted to read it every single day before his nap, and as I was learning that I loved working with kids, I rediscovered this book. I don't know that I've ever read anything else by Maurice Sendack, but this book definitely has stood the test of time for a reason. It is deceptively simple compared to other children's books, sentimental, but not overwhelmingly so, an captures the imagination of children in a way that is neither cliched or obnoxious.
No comments:
Post a Comment