Childrens book published by Maurice Sendak in 1963. First book in the trilogy including: "In The Night Kitchen" and "Outside Over There". Mandatory reading for children everywhere right along with Dr. Seuss. Also See:

Where The Wild Things Are, the plot

The book was originally going to be titled Where the Horses Are, but Sendak had a problem... he couldn't draw horses. After trying to replace them with all kinds of different animals, he finally dropped the horses and settled on "things," which were based on the hairy-nosed, snaggle-toothed Brooklyn relatives he hated as a child.

Where the Wild Things Are was banned when it was first published in 1967. It then went on to win dozens of awards. Why, you ask? Although the book has been extensively discussed, some of the most interesting arguments are the psychoanalytical responses to the book.

According to psychoanalytic theory, the book clearly details Max's process of learning to master his emotions. Freud stated that children learn to understand and grow through projecting emotions and situations onto external objects or fantasies, in dreams or in play. By understanding the process symbolically, they can understand it as it applies to everyday use. Max projects his aggression into a vision of the "Wild Things". He then "tames" (masters) them, and returns to the "real world."

The protagonist in the book, Max, is a very naughty child. He nails a sheet into the wall to make a tent, chases his dog with a fork, and screams at his mother that he will "eat her up". This is a vision of the child that adults, more than children, have difficulty seeing - the child as a raving, craving creature.

When Max is sent to his room with no supper, he sails away to the land of the Wild Things. The journey for "days, months, and almost a year" over the sea represents this journey into the fantasy world. If there is any doubt as to whether the creatures are products of Max's imagination, return to the beginning of the book to see the picture tacked on Max's wall. It is a drawing of one of the creatures, signed "by MaX".

It is also interesting to note how the page layout echoes this process. When we first begin the book, there is a large amount of white space surrounding the text. Gradually, the illustrations become larger and larger, until they overwhelm the entire page. Text is completely eliminated on the double page spread of Max and the Wild Things dancing and celebrating together. However, as Max tames the animals and returns to his home, the illustrations recede to their original size.

And you thought it was such a simple book.

The first glimpse I had of this movie was the small snippet that Spike Jonze allowed me to see - that of the back of a Wild Thing, racing down a hill among the winter trees.

My first response was, if I remember correctly, "Oh, hell no."

That was two parts horror, two parts hope, and three parts disbelief. Disbelief that anyone would have the chutzpah to make this book into a movie. It only has around ten sentences in the whole thing, for God's sake!

But yes, Spike Jonze has attempted if not the impossible, the certainly very very hard and fraught with peril.

And he's succeeded.

By the time King Max shouts "LET THE WILD RUMPUS START!" you'll be sold, if you were the kind of kid that demanded ever more readings of this book, perhaps even to the point of exasperation of your parents. The movie is, and let me be clear here, not for all kids. It's been made for two kinds of kids. First, it's made for the kids still living secretly inside the adults who, when they were small, read this book with their parents over and over.

And it's made for the kids they've all been having the past fifteen or twenty years; the kids who were brought up not so much on Rowling and Twilight but on Seuss and Sendak and Silverstein.

The filmmakers have managed to capture, with remarkably little damage, the concept of Kid Logic. Things happen in the movie, and things are reasoned out by the characters in the movie in a fashion which will be entirely incomprehensible to adults who don't have one of those kids inside them. The kids will understand it intuitively, after all, because it's right.

At the end of the day, though, a bit of a let down happened to me. I realized that Jonze & Co. had undertaken such a suicide mission making this movie, that when they against all odds managed to pull it off without screwing anything up, without disrespecting the source material, without changing the essence of the story despite now having lines for people to read and ninety-plus minutes of time to fill with what was a 26-page picture book - when they'd pulled off that herculean task, there wasn't much left over to make it an awesome movie.

It's an unbelievable accomplishment.

But that's not always the same as 'awesome.'

I respect it. I'm just not sure how much I enjoyed it at anything other than the technical appreciation level.

And of such things, fun nights at the movies are not usually made.

I would recommend it, though - because anyone who loved this story needs to see the unbelievable thing that was done with it - and who knows; maybe, unlike me, you'll manage to effortlessly see past the accomplishment and watch the movie. I suspect that if you can do that, and do do that, the movie itself is, indeed, awesome.

Maybe on a later viewing, for me.

Your trusted and self-righteous friend Behr is no stranger to the controversy surrounding the latest Hollywood blockbuster, Where The Wild Things Are and so since friend Behr likes to make sure he sees all sides of an issue before making an informed and correct decision about it, he (meaning friend Behr) went to the movies tonight with his associates to see for himself if this film was really inappropriate for children.

Decisions like this one are tough to come by, as I know namby pamby liberals don't like their children to see any films that might scare them or cause them to wet their pants. I remember when I was very young, not even twenty-five years of age, and my mother took me to see The Exorcist and your friend Behr wet his pants and cried during the film. The intensity of Where The Wild Things Are isn't anything like that of The Exorcist, but making the comparison in this way allows me to make ample use of the emphasis tags which is good fun.

My good and trusted friend Chopper went with me to see this film at the state of the art David Hasselhoff Memorial Theatre Complex in downtown Baltimore. It was much nicer and contained much more chrome than the lousy theatre down the street from my house that is overrun with hippies and communists and shows a lot of films in languages other than English with annoying subtitles that are hard to read when there are so many people who walk around during these movies. I really wish someone would teach them the skill of sitting still before someone like Chopper "busts a cap in their ass" as he likes to say when he is lit up on the amphetemines he gobbles by the handful all day long.

The first thing I noticed, aside from the nice looking chrome bannisters and signage, when I walked into this new theatre was the low-cut uniform tops on the female ushers. Now if I may be frank, your good friend Behr likes this kind of thing, especially when the female usher is working in an air conditioned theatre where the air conditioning is turned up really high so as to make it very cold as breasts love to be stared at when they are cold. And what about those nipples, eh? I know you are with me there, but is this the kind of thing you want your children exposed to? No one, and I mean no one, should have any physical or visual contact with breasts until they are at least thirteen years of age and then I approve of free for alls. Children should not be exposed to air chilled breasts. It is simply wrong. And so I had to make a note of this. One strike against Where The Wild Things Are on these grounds. Not a good start.

After we sat down in the theatre I noticed a strange aroma in the air around me, sort of like a funky cigar. I know that smoking is no longer allowed in theatres thanks to Kenyan strongman Barack Obama's invasive laws, so something had to be afoot. Two teenagers sitting in the row in front of us were passing a marijuana cigarette back and forth. Chopper was quick to join in, asking them to pass it back to him, and offered me a taste, which I refused because marijuana is illegal. Chopper and the young ones went on to inform me that "you need to get high to enjoy this movie, friend Behr." As you might imagine, this was strike two.

I waited patiently for the previews, as I knew there weren't any naked ladies in this film and hoped to fill that need through the previews, when I looked over to see two men on the other side of the theatre making out. They were both men! They were making out! In a movie theatre showing a film that may or may not be appropriate for children! I stared at them, hoping they would take the hint and stop, but then they yelled across the theatre at me, "This was our favorite book growing up!" Assuming they meant the movie (as they didn't appear to have brought any books into the theatre) I had to put a third strike on the movie. And you know what they say, three strikes and you're out.

And so, without any question, your friend Behr can tell you that the film Where The Wild Things Are is inappropriate for children and you should keep your children away from it. Chopper seemed to really enjoy the movie after smoking his wacky weed, and so did his new friends, but your friend Behr just stared at the screen speechless.