Where the Wild Things Are Not

Growing up, there were some children’s books that I found to be just flat-out creepy. I guess it was probably the illustrations that got to me moreso than the actual story content, but even today, there are certain books that evoke a knee-jerk rejection when I see them or hear their titles.

Pretty much any book by Roald Dahl falls into this category, as well as Charlotte’s Web, The Velveteen Rabbit and The Giving Tree. I’m still extremely leery of The Phantom Toolbooth, although that one’s due primarily to the freaky movie adaptation by Chuck Jones.

It appears that one thing The Boy and I share in common is an inherent distrust of Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak.

Although it’s apparently “regarded as a classic of American illustrated children’s literature”, I’ve always felt that those monsters are just a little too creepy to be the subject of a children’s book. They’re large and very growly. Lots of teeth too.

The protagonist, Max, is also kind of on the creepy side, primarily because the reader only ever seems him in his little monster costume. Sure, it says that he’s in a costume, but when you’re a kid you have to go by what you can see – and that fur looks pretty well integrated with the rest of him.

Plus, there’s the whole plot. Max feels like he’s being punished unfairly after being sent to bed without dinner, so what does he do? Fantasize about traveling to a far away island, where he basically teases the monsters with the promise of interaction and then leaves whenever he gets homesick, leaving the monsters on the island. When he wakes up, his parents have caved and his dinner is sitting in his room.

I don’t know exactly what the point of the book is. Is it an allegory about getting back at one’s parents? An introspective look at one boy’s realization that family is what matters the most in life? What do the monsters represent? His costume? The island? The journey? The dinner? Am I trying to read too much into this? Was Maurice Sendak just high on something and wrote down his thoughts?

All I do know is that they book is just kind of freaky. I don’t care how “beloved” it is or how excited that kid got about it on Reading Rainbow, it’s just plain creepy.

Apparently my son agrees.

Last weekend, we went to the local library and I let the The Boy pick out three books to take home. He’s pretty excited about the whole library concept – he likes books and he likes puzzles and the library has both in spades. His choices this time were some lame Blue’s Clues book, Horton Hears a Who (a real classic) and the aforementioned freaky book. I warned him that he might not like it, but I was overruled.

We read it that night and The Boy seemed to really enjoy the book. He went to bed, happy as a proverbial clam.

Then, two hours later, I heard him calling. The Wife went in to see what the problem was. Apparently, he didn’t like the book being in bed with him. So, away it went.

The next night, we didn’t read the book and it sat on the floor next to his bed. About thirty minutes later, he called me in.

“I don’t like that book lookin’ at me.”

And so our copy of Where the Wild Things Are made its way out into the living room, where it has sat since.

I rest my case.