Where the Wild Things Are is a 1963 children's picture book by American writer and illustrator Maurice Sendak, originally published by Harper & Row. The book has been adapted into other media several times, including an animated short, an opera, and, in 2009, a live-action feature film adaptation and video game. According to HarperCollins, the book has sold over 19 million copies worldwide as of 2008.Thornton, Matthew (February 4, 2008) . Publishers Weekly

Plot

The book tells the story of Max, who one evening plays around his home, "making mischief" in a wolf costume. As punishment, his mother sends him to bed without supper. In his room, a mysterious, wild forest and sea grows out of his imagination, and Max sails to the land of the Wild Things. The Wild Things are fearsome-looking monsters, but Max conquers them "by staring into their yellow eyes without blinking once", and he is made "the King of all Wild Things", dancing with the monsters in a "wild rumpus". He soon finds himself lonely and homesick, and he returns home to his bedroom, where he finds his supper waiting for him, still hot.

Development history

The original concept for the book featured horses instead of monsters. According to Sendak, his publisher suggested the switch when she discovered that Sendak could not draw horses, but thought that he "could at the very least draw 'a thing'!"Warrick, Pamela (October 11, 1993) . Los Angeles Times. He replaced the horses with caricatures of his aunts and uncles, whom he had studied critically in his youth as an escape from their weekly visits to his family's Brooklyn home. When working on the opera adaptation of the book with Oliver Knussen, Sendak gave the monsters the names of his relatives: Tzippy, Moishe, Aaron, Emile, and Bernard.Burns, p. 70.

Literary significance

The book was immensely popular from its release, and 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". 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." 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." 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. He indicated that the three books are "all variations on the same theme: how children master various feelings…"
The book was awarded the Caldecott Medal in 1964.American Library Association: . Accessed May 27,2009. It also won the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award and was an American Library Association Notable Book.

Adaptations

In 1973 the book was adapted into an animated short directed by Gene Deitch at Krátký Film, Prague for Weston Woods Studios. Two versions were released: the original 1973 version, with narration by Allen Swift and a musique concrete score composed by Deitch; and an updated version in 1988 with new music and narration by Peter Schickele. In the 1980s Sendak worked with British composer Oliver Knussen on a children's opera based on the book, Where the Wild Things Are.Burns, p. 70. 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. A concert performance was given at The Proms in the Royal Albert Hall, London in 2002.

A live-action film version directed by Spike Jonze was released on October 16, 2009. The film stars Max Records as Max and 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. The screenplay was adapted by Jonze and Dave Eggers. Sendak was one of the producers for the film.