Where The Wild Things Are

"Oh please don't go - we'll eat you up - we love you so!"

Where The Wild Things Are
By: Maurice Sendak
Copyright 1963
Harper & Row, Publishers
Picture Book
Any Age
37 Pages

Max, a boy full of energy and always creating mischief of one kind or another, one night wore his wolf suit to bed.  After chasing the dog around, his mother called him "WILD THING!"  "I'LL EAT YOU UP!" Was his responce to that and he was sent to his room without dinner.  That night something AMAZING happened, Maxes room started growing into a forest.  Trees were growing, grass started growing, soon he had no walls and roof but he was in the wide open world.  He found an ocean and a small boat that had Max writen on it, so he got in it and traveled.  He was sailing for what seemed like a long time, on to the where the wild things are.  When Max arived to this place the wilds things where there. "They roadred their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeht and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws."  Max, afraid of nothing, said  "BE STILL" and they all stoped.  He had tamed them with a "magic trick".  Max looked them in their eyes and didnt blink, it frightened them, and Max was named "the most wild thing of all", the king of all the wild things.  Being wild things Max cried to them "LET THE WILD RUMPUS START!"  The rumpus did start.  They danced through the night, played through the day, and partied.  Max grew tired and and commanded them to stop and he sent them to bed without their supper.  Max grew lonly and wanted to be back home, where he was loved best of all.  He started to smell something, it smelt good, it came from far across the world and he started to follow it.  He gave up being king of the wild things and left.  As he sailed away the wild things called to him "Oh please don't go - we'll eat you up - we love you so!"  But Max would not and he sailed away.  He traveled and ended back up into he very own room, where he had supper waiting for him ... and it was still hot.

I would recomend this book to any child and parent, I mean, it is still one of my favorite books at 20 years old.  I read it to the child I nannyed for this last fall and she loved this book.  She started to memorize it and she would tell me if I started changing words.  I would say stuff on the pages that didnt have words and when i skipped over saying them and just turned the page she would say "NO" and go back and "read" the pages to me.  She was 4, so, this book I think is good for all ages.

I dont think that there is anything wrong with this book.  The wild things could be too scary for some kids, but I have read this book to many childern and I havent met anyone who doesnt like it.

I love this book.  It is one that I grew up on and that my children and students will grow up on and have there to read.