Title Where the Wild Things Are Series --- Author Maurice Sendak Illustrator Maurice Sendak Publisher Harper Collins - 1991 First Printing 1963 Category Children Warnings None Main Characters Max Main Elements Monsters

Max, a wild and naughty boy, is sent to bed without his supper by his exhausted mother. In his room, he imagines sailing far away to a land of Wild Things. Instead of eating him, the Wild Things make Max their king.

I've somehow gone over four decades without reading this book. I saw the movie but didn't much care for it (we all looked at each other with a "what did we just watch?" expression on our faces) and so never looked up the book. But then I read that some Henson movies like Labyrinth had some inspiration from this book and since the library had it, thought why not? Can't go my whole life without reading this classic, should only take a few minutes after all.

Well, the artwork is wonderful. And the use of imagination is wonderful. But this is a story about a kid being naughty and instead of learning anything, he becomes the king of wild things, has a wonderful time, continues to do whatever he wants, and even gets his supper. Its a bit of a mixed message for me, be a mean, nasty kid and you get to sail off to a wonderous land where you can romp and play all day (at least until you get hungry). When Edmund did that in Narnia there were all kinds of negative consequences...here kids learn they can be mean and that's fine, your supper will still be waiting for you. Not that I believe in starving kids as punishment but I would still expect a learning experience here.

There's a lot of people who love this book, but I have to assume they read it when they were little, when you don't worry if a book makes any sense or teaches us anything useful (like being a cruel and chasing your dog with a fork should not be rewarded with a kingdom). If the kid learned to be nice before made king, rather than cowing his subjects and mistreating them...but nope. Nice artwork but no good message. I can just imagine when he grows up what kind of tyrant he'll be.