Video with Maurice Sendak and Filmmaker Spike Jonze

Where The Wild Things Are is a warm and witty fantasy, sparse in words (338 in all), enriched by formidable drawings in which the wild things grow larger and larger as the plot thickens. It marks a critical point in American literature for children because it dares to present openly anger, conflict, and rage, and because it resolves these issues satisfactorily for the child, so that he is reconciled with himself and his world.

Sendak discusses the character of Max:

“Max, the hero of my book, discharges his anger against his Mother, and returns to the real world sleepy, hungry, and at peace with himself…What is too often overlooked is the fact that from their earliest years children live on familiar terms with disrupting emotions…fear and anxiety are an intrinsic part of their everyday lives … they continually cope with frustration as best they can. And it is through fantasy that children achieve catharsis. It is the best means they have for taming Wild Things.

“It is my involvement with this inescapable fact of childhood–the awful vulnerability of children and their struggle to make themselves King of all Wild Things–that gives my work whatever truth and passion it may have.”

[Read More] of a very long article about Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are, and child psychology.