Where the Wild Things Are

Sendak, Maurice. Where the Wild Things Are. Harper, 1963. 40 pages.

Where the Wild Things Are written and illustrated by Maurice Sendak is about a boy who explores the world that grew in his room. The story begins with the boy sent to his room without dinner after he offends his mother. Over night, a forest grows in his room and develops into an entire world. The book tells us Max (the boy) explores the new world for a long period of time and he eventually encounters the beasts that live within this world. Max lives with them for a while until he heads home to be in the world where he belongs. The reader sees Max as having an overdeveloped imagination. There is much debate as to whether the world that grew in his room was real, or just a dream.

As Max travels into this world and meets the beasts that live within, he is quickly crowned the king. Even as a king with beasts to rule over, Max feels lonely in this new world. Perhaps it is because even though he dresses and acts like a beast, he does not belong. In the concluding picture, the reader sees Max beginning to take off his costume, maybe meaning that he was done being someone else; it was time to be with his mother in their world where he belonged. The pictures themselves, created by Sendak, are drawn with a lot of little lines that give it texture. The texture makes the monster seem more real.

A lesson we can all take from this is to be yourself. For children, don’t grow up too fast. Max was lonely because he was pretending to be someone else. When he returned to his mother, and found his dinner waiting for him, he was happy. Max was trying to be more mature than he was when he was king, and he wanted to be a kid again. He wanted to go home to his mother where she would take care him. No one needs to grow up that fast, enjoy being young.

“And Max the king of all wild things was lonely and wanted to be where someone loved him best of all.”