by Moe Zilla

Created on: March 10, 2009   Last Updated: March 11, 2009

It won the highest award - a Caldecott Medal - in 1964. It's been an opera, a ballet, and even appeared on a commemorative stamp. It's been more than 45 years since Maurice Sendak first published "Where the Wild Things Are," and it's entertained millions of children. But if you re-visit the book as an adult, you'll still experience its rare sense of wonder.

Even the drawings on the inside front cover are mysterious, showing strange star-shaped leaves in orange, yellow and purple. There's a monster and a boat on the cover, and big monsters with jagged teeth on the title page. But the monster's a really a tribute to the raw imagination of a little boy named Max. And if you look carefully in the drawing of the boy's house, there's already a picture of a toothy monster hanging on his wall - and it's labeled "by Max"!

The book describes the night that "Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind." And he's doing the things boys do - building a tent, hammering nails in the wall, hanging a teddy bear from a coat hanger, and chasing his dog with a fork. He's acting like a wolf, after all, and even tells his mother that "I'll eat you up." Not appreciating his role-playing, she sends him to his bedroom instead, "without eating anything."

I've been told that there's only 10 sentences in the book, but Sendak's illustrations say so much more. There's a peevish look on Max's face as he sulks in his room, but in the next drawing he's closing his eyes while something magical happens. "That very night in Max's room a forest grew," Sendak writes - and while the room is viewed from the same angle, there's now six skinny trees that are touching his ceiling! It's more proof of Max's imagination, but this may be lost on younger readers. When I read this book as a kid, I thought a forest really grew in Max's room!

Sendak's skills as an illustrator allows him to run with his own imagination. Soon there's more than six trees - there's green grass where his carpet used to be. The trees have gotten leafier, and there's new palm trees and exotic plants. The only familiar thing left in the drawing is the window and its shutter, showing a full moon glowing ominously. I like how the book's themes all come together. Suddenly Max's humble wolf costume has found it's way to the perfect setting!

The forest "grew and grew until his ceiling hung with vines and the walls became the world all around." I was disappointed as a child that instead of walking into the jungle, Max hopped into a boat

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>