I don't know how I managed it, but I managed to grow up and do some children's library work without ever reading Where the wild things are by Maurice Sendak. I think that takes a certain amount of talent. I have a friend who was mortified that a video of the book made a little girl cry.
It still didn't make me read the book. I have seen the preview for the 2009 movie, but not seen it yet although I do want to. Then I heard about a novel made from the book and the movie called "The wild things" by Dave Eggers, an author I've always wanted to read.
It is an odd experience reading a book based on another book that you've heard so much about but never actually read. I didn't really know the story... a boy comes across some monsters. Right?
The Wild Things was quite different to what I was expecting... given that I didn't know what I was expecting. The boy, Max, was there. The monsters -Carol, Judith, Ira, Douglas, Katherine, Bull and Alexander were there. The story was a bit different to what I was expecting. I talked about reading it in Book chat and one of the members said that kids enjoy the controlled scare, and that there is safety at the end.
It was an enjoyable read. I'd be interested in seeing the movie to see how it translates to the screen. Max seemed like a normal little boy, although he seemed to act on every thought he had. That could be normal behaviour for a boy of his age for all I know. When he got to the island, he was still doing that to some extent, only he thought the things he chose to do would make the Wild Things happy. It didn't. To me the book seemed to be about the safety and security of home. As when Max went to the island everything was a bit chaotic. I could have completely missed the point though.
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