A Return to “Where the Wild Things Are”
Maurice Sendak may be gone, but his storytelling will live on in a posthumously published book arriving this year.
February 26, 2018
Maurice Sendak, who died in 2012, is publishing a book from the grave. Before his death, Sendak wrote a book called “Presto and Zesto in Limboland,” but the book was never published. 2018 will be its year. In honor of Sendak’s memory, and in anticipation of his “new” book, let’s take a trip back to the days of childlike wonder.
Maurice Sendak is best known for his book “Where the Wild Things Are,” a short picture book about a boy in a wolf suit named Max who loves to create mischief. One night after creating mischief, his mother calls him a wild thing. He roars back at her, “I’ll eat you up!” He went to bed without any food. Stuck in his room, he lets his imagination free. Suddenly a forest starts to grow and grow until his room is no more. The world around him is now a forest, he walks around the forest until he finds a boat, which he sails on for day and night. He lands on a place where the wild things are. The monsters “roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth,” but he was not afraid, so they made him king.
All day and all night they played and played, but Max felt lonely. He wanted someone who loved him, so he sailed away. The wild things roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes as he waved good-bye.
Sendak wrote the book about his experiences as a child. Although in the story Max is a mischievous child, Sendak was a sickly child. Due to sickness, he was confined to the bedroom, which sparked his creativity to produce “Where the Wild Things Are.” His creative mind sparked a story with multiple meanings.
In its basic form, “Where the Wild Things Are” is about a boy being punished by being sent to his room. Trapped in his room, Max wants to rebel against his mother’s rule, so he uses his imagination to escape to a place where he is king and in-charge of everyone. He played with the wild things until he realizes that he wants to love. He tells the wild things to stop playing. The wild things tell him what he told his mother, “We’ll eat you up,” meaning he saw the error of his ways and wanted his mother back.
The book is short and shows character. Max demonstrates a goodness by showing that he’s not afraid of anyone. He shows kids that it doesn’t matter what you look like, everyone can have fun and play together. Another thing kids and adults can learn from “Where the Wild things are” is, even though you are the king of the wild things and get to play all day and night, some might still need someone to love them. This book teaches that physical items can seem to be the thing you wish, but the feeling of being loved is truly what people most want.
Another way this book can be analyzed is through the eyes of the wild things. The wild things can represent many things, like the evils of distraction. Maurice Sendak gives life to the ugliness of procrastination and distraction through the form of the wild things. He shows how much fun Max is having with the wild things, but eventually, he gets bored and lonely because he is away from home. Home is representing his reality, and Max must choose to either go back to reality to live his life or stay in his imaginary world with the wild things. The wild things do not want him to leave like all toxic things.
