Where the Wild Things Are
Where
the Wild Things Are is a 1963
children's
picture
book by American writer and illustrator Maurice
Sendak, originally published by HarperCollins. The book has been adapted into other media several times,
including an animated short in 1973 (with an updated version in 1988); a 1980 opera; and a live-action 2009 feature-film
adaptation, directed by Spike
Jonze. The book had sold over 19 million
copies worldwide as of 2009, with 10 million of those being in the United
States.[2]
Sendak
won the annual Caldecott Medal
from the children's librarians in 1964, recognizing Wild Things as the
previous year's "most distinguished American picture book for
children".[3] It was voted the number one picture book in a 2012 survey
of School Library Journal readers, not for the first time.[4]
Plot
This
story of only 338 words focuses on a young boy named Max who, after dressing in
his wolf costume, wreaks such havoc through his household that he is sent to
bed without his supper. Max's bedroom undergoes a mysterious transformation
into a jungle environment, and he winds up sailing to an island inhabited by
malicious beasts known as the "Wild Things." After successfully
intimidating the creatures, Max is hailed as the king of the Wild Things and
enjoys a playful romp with his subjects. However, he starts to feel lonely and
decides to return home, to the Wild Things' dismay. Upon returning to his
bedroom, Max discovers a hot supper waiting for him.
Development
Sendak
began his career as an illustrator, but by the mid-1950s he had decided to
start both writing and illustrating his own books.[5] In 1956, he published his first book for which he was the sole
author, Kenny's Window (1956). Soon after, he 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".[5] Shortly before starting the illustrations, Sendak realized
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.[6]
He
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, on Sunday afternoons, 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.[5][7][8] These relatives, like Sendak's parents, were poor Jewish
immigrants from Poland, whose remaining family in Europe were killed during the
Holocaust while Sendak was in his early teens. As a child, however,
he saw them only as "grotesques".[8]
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.[9]
Literary significance
According
to Sendak, at first, the book was banned in libraries and received negative
reviews. It took about two years for librarians and teachers to realize that
children were flocking to the book, checking it out over and over again, and
for critics to relax their views.[10] Since then, it has received high critical acclaim. Francis
Spufford suggests that the book is "one
of the very few picture books to make an entirely deliberate and beautiful use
of the psychoanalytic story of anger".[11] 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."[12] New York Times
film critic Manohla Dargis
noted that "there are different ways to read the wild things, through a Freudian or colonialist prism, and probably as many ways to ruin this delicate
story of a solitary child liberated by his imagination."[13] 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 sort of trilogy centered on children's growth, survival,
change, and fury.[14][15] 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."[14]
Based
on a 2007 online poll, the National Education
Association named the book one of its
"Teachers' Top 100 Books for Children".[16] Five years later School Library Journal sponsored a survey of readers which identified Where the
Wild Things Are as top picture book.[4] Elizabeth Bird, the librarian from the New York Public Library who conducted the survey, observed that there was little
doubt it would be voted number one and highlighted its designation by one
reader as a watershed, "ushering in the modern age of picture books".
Another called it "perfectly crafted, perfectly illustrated ... simply the
epitome of a picture book" and noted that Sendak "rises above the
rest in part because he is subversive". President Barack
Obama read it aloud for children attending
the White House Easter Egg Roll in multiple years.[17]
Despite
the book's popularity, Sendak refused to produce a sequel; four months before
his death in 2012, he told comedian Stephen
Colbert that one would be "the most
boring idea imaginable".[18]
Where
the Wild Things Are was number four on the list of
"Top Check Outs OF ALL TIME" by the New York Public Library.[19]
Adaptations
An
animated short based on the book, which had taken five years to complete, was
released on September 8, 1973,[2] directed by Gene
Deitch and produced at Krátký film, Prague,
for Weston Woods Studios. Two versions were released: the original 1973 version,
with narration by Allen Swift
and a musique concrète
score composed by Deitch himself; and an updated version on September 23, 1988,
with new music and narration by Peter
Schickele.[20]
In
the 1980s, Sendak worked with British composer Oliver
Knussen on a children's opera
based on the book.[9] The opera received its first (incomplete) performance in Brussels in 1980; the first complete performance of the final
version was given by the Glyndebourne
Touring Opera in London in 1984. This was
followed by its first U.S. performance in Saint Paul,
Minnesota, in 1985 and the New York City premiere by New York City Opera
in 1987. A concert performance was given at The
Proms in the Royal
Albert Hall in London in 2002.[citation needed] A concert
production was produced by New York City Opera in spring 2011.[21]
In
1983, Walt Disney Productions conducted a series of tests of computer-generated imagery created by Glen
Keane and John
Lasseter using as their subject Where the
Wild Things Are.[22]
In
1999, Isadar released a solo piano musical composition titled "Where the
Wild Things Are" which appeared on his album Active Imagination,
inspired by the Sendak book. The composition was revisited and re-recorded in
2012 on Isadar's album, Reconstructed, with Grammy winner and founder of Windham Hill Records, William
Ackerman, producing.[23]
The
2005 Simpsons
episode, "The Girl Who Slept Too Little", features a spoof of Where the Wild Things Are
entitled "The Land of the Wild Beasts".
The live-action film
version of the book is directed by Spike
Jonze. It was released on October 16,
2009.[24] The film stars Max Records as Max and features Catherine
Keener as his mother, with Lauren
Ambrose, Chris
Cooper, Paul
Dano, James
Gandolfini, Catherine
O'Hara and Forest
Whitaker providing the voices of the
principal Wild Things. The soundtrack was written and produced by Karen
O and Carter
Burwell. The screenplay was adapted by Jonze
and Dave Eggers.
Sendak was one of the producers for the film. The screenplay was novelized by
Eggers as The Wild Things,
published in 2009.
In
2012, indie rock quartet alt-J
released the song "Breezeblocks",
inspired in part by the book.[25] Alt-J keyboardist Gus Unger-Hamilton said the story and the
song share similar ideas about parting with a loved one. "Breezeblocks"
reached certified ARIA Gold
status in Australia.[26]
In
2016, Alessia Cara
released her second single, "Wild Things",
which charted at number fifty on the Billboard
Hot 100. In an interview with ABC
News Radio, Cara stated she took inspiration
from Where the Wild Things Are, saying "each 'Thing' represents an
emotion and [the main character] kinda escapes into this world ... and that's
kinda what I wanted to do".[27]
References
· "Where
the wild things are". Library of Congress. Catalog Records.
Retrieved June 17, 2013.
· · Turan, Kenneth
(October 16, 2009). "Where
the Wild Things Are".
Los Angeles Times. Retrieved February 12, 2012.
· · "Caldecott
Medal & Honor Books, 1938-Present". Association for
Library Service to Children.
American Library
Association. Retrieved June 19, 2013.
"The Randolph Caldecott Medal". Association for Library Service to Children. American Library Association. Retrieved May 27, 2009.
"The Randolph Caldecott Medal". Association for Library Service to Children. American Library Association. Retrieved May 27, 2009.
· · "SLJ's
Top 100 Picture Books"
(PDF). School Library Journal. 2012. Poster presentation of reader poll results. Archived
from the
original (PDF) on November 23, 2016.
Retrieved June 17, 2013.
· · Warrick, Pamela
(October 11, 1993). "Facing
the Frightful Things".
Los Angeles Times. Retrieved August 27, 2009.
· · Shea, Christopher
(October 16, 2009). "The
Jewish lineage of "Where the Wild Things Are"". The
Boston Globe. Brainiac. Retrieved January 28,
2012.
· · "Wild Things:
The Art of Maurice Sendak".
Traditional Fine Arts Organization. April 26, 2005. Retrieved August 28, 2009.
· · Brockes,
Emma (October 2, 2011). "Maurice
Sendak: 'I Refuse To Lie to Children'". The
Guardian. Retrieved October 5, 2011.
· · Burns, Tom, ed.
(March 2008). "Maurice
Sendak". Children's Literature Review.
Detroit, MI: Gale. 131: 70. ISBN 978-0-7876-9606-1. OCLC 792604122.
· · Sendak, Maurice
(October 16, 2009). Hart, Hugh (ed.). "Review:
Where the Wild Things Are Is Woolly, But Not Wild Enough (Sendak Says Wild
Things Film as Feral as Book)".
Wired.com.
Retrieved December 30, 2009.
· · Spufford, Francis
(2002). The
Child That Books Built: A Life of Reading (1st ed.). New York City: Metropolitan Books. p. 60. ISBN 978-0-8050-7215-0. OCLC 50034806.
· · Pols, Mary
(October 14, 2009). "Where
the Wild Things Are: Sendak with Sensitivity". Time. Retrieved October 18, 2009.
· · Dargis,
Manohla (October 16, 2009). "Some
of His Best Friends Are Beasts".
The New York Times. Retrieved October 16, 2009.
· · Lehmann-Haupt, Christopher (June 1, 1981). "Book
Of The Times". The New York Times. Retrieved October 12, 2009.
· · Gottlieb, Richard
M. (2008). "Maurice
Sendak's Trilogy: Disappointment, Fury, and Their Transformation through
Art". Psychoanalytic Study
of the Child. 63: 186–217. doi:10.1080/00797308.2008.11800804. ISBN 978-0-300-14099-6. PMID 19449794.
·
· "Teachers'
Top 100 Books for Children".
National Education Association. 2007. Retrieved August 22, 2012.
· · Bird, Elizabeth
(July 2, 2012). "Top
100 Picture Books #1: Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak". School Library Journal. Retrieved June 17, 2013.
· · Carlson, Erin
(January 25, 2012). "Maurice
Sendak Calls Newt Gingrich an 'Idiot' in 'Colbert Report' Interview". The Hollywood Reporter. The Live Feed. Retrieved February 21, 2012.
