Above is a the contents of the book itself presented in a video. Here is a link to a
PDF version.
Interesting things I came across, the author of the original book is a bit
of a jerk. Which kind of shows in the book. Oddly enough, the book was banned from libraries when it first came out because it was too "angry." According to Wiki:
Literary significance
According to Sendak, at first the book was banned in libraries and received negative reviews. It took about two years for librarians and teachers to realize that children were flocking to the book, checking it out over and over again, and for critics to relax their views.
[7] Since then, it 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".
[8] 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."
[9] 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."
[10] 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.
[11][12] He indicated that the three books are "all variations on the same theme: how children master various feelings - danger, boredom, fear, frustration, jealousy - and manage to come to grips with the realities of their lives."
[11] The book was awarded the
Caldecott Medal in 1964.
