Let the Wild Rumpus Start

The much-anticipated live-action film of "Where the Wild Things Are" opens today. Many critics have already lavished praise on director Spike Jonze's interpretation of the beloved classic. Michael Phillips, of the Chicago Tribune, calls it "a nervy and breathtaking achievement."

Jonze, the director of such offbeat and edgy concoctions as Adaptation and Being John Malkovich, had to take some liberties in turning a 338-word picture book into a feature film. But the movie has earned the stamp of approval from author/illustrator Maurice Sendak, who walked down the red carpet with Jonze and child star Max Records at the film's New York premiere.

The movie has aroused controversy; some charge that it is too scary for young children. "But what if that intensity, that asymmetry, is exactly why children should see Wild Things?" ponders Newsweek critic Andrew Romano (see http://www.newsweek.com/id/217830) "The greatest children's stories are about what happens when we become untethered from authority...to be rid of rules and face a dangerous and exhilirating world alone." Parenting today seems more about structure and supervision, but "the less room we leave in real life for rebellion and abandon, the more kids need stories to make space for those very things."

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The Caldecott-winning book also stirred things up when it was published in 1963. "Having a story about a small child throwing a tantrum for the benefit of his mother was not a story you were going to find in children's literature before the 1960s, because children weren't supposed to yell at their mothers," said children's book author and historian Leonard S. Marcus. "The idea that children experience rage and that it's a natural part of their psyche was a new idea to children's picture books."

Then, as today, some found the "wild things" too frightening for children. But exploring childhood fears has long been a preoccupation for Sendak, who at age 13, learned that many of his relatives had perished in the Holocaust.

Sendak grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., the son of Eastern European immigrants. His "wild things" were based on relatives who frequently visited his family on the weekends and shared meals with them. "Three aunts and three uncles who spoke no English, practically. They grabbed you and twisted your face, and they thought that was an affectionate thing to do. And I knew that my mother's cooking was pretty terrible, and it also took forever, and there was every possibility that they would eat me, or my sister or my brother," he recalled in a recent Newsweek interview.

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Reflecting on the Wild Things, I remembered a great story that Sendak once told in an interview, that really demonstrated his appreciation for children. With a little searching, I found the interview, which was conducted by NPR's Terry Gross a few years ago. Sendak described how he had received a card with a charming drawing on it from a little boy. "I loved it. I answer all my children's letters--sometimes very hastily--but this one I lingered over," he said. "I sent him a postcard and I drew a picture of a Wild Thing on it. I wrote, `Dear Jim, I loved your card.' Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said, `Jim loved your card so much he ate it.' That to me was one of the highest compliments I've ever received. He didn't care that it was an original drawing or anything. He saw it, loved it, he ate it."