Media General News Service

For more than 45 years, these Wild Things have been making peoples' hearts sing.

Since 1963, Maurice Sendak's storybook Where the Wild Things Are has been charming kids and adults alike with its simple, beautifully illustrated tale of young Max and his imaginary encounters with a group of fearsome but friendly monsters.

Since its debut, the book has won awards including the Caldecott Medal and the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, and has been named as a "notable book" by the American Library Association. It was adapted into an animated short that has been released on DVD by Scholastic Video, with narration and music by Peter Schickele, the classical composer/humorist best known for his work as P.D.Q. Bach. A documentary about Sendak's life and work, Tell Them Anything You Want: A Portrait of Maurice Sendak, made its debut on HBO and will be repeated at 8 a.m. Friday, and a videogame was released this week for most gaming platforms.

Friday, Sendak's most famous work is coming to theaters, in a lavish feature film that blends live action, puppetry and computer-generated imagery, with actors including James Gandolfini, Catherine O'Hara, Forest Whitaker, Chris Cooper and Lauren Ambrose bringing voice to the monsters, and a relative newcomer named Max Records - previously seen in the feature film The Brothers Bloom - in the role of rambunctious young Max.

And if the notion of adapting a storybook with only nine sentences of text into a feature-length film worries some fans, then here's a tidbit that many will find reassuring: Sendak approved of the film, and hand-picked director Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich) for the job of adapting his story to the screen. But it remains to be seen how audiences will react.

We asked readers to tell us what they like about the original book and help explain why it has remained a favorite since its original release.

Christopher Baker, a professor of education at Salem College, is a specialist in children's literature and considers Where the Wild Things Are one of the top storybooks ever written.

"(Sendak) said he wrote it like a symphony between the pictures and the print," Baker said. "The language is melodic; he has this musical sense all throughout.... It just rolls off your mouth when you read it."

He appreciates the subtlety of how the art changes as the story progresses.

"We have a child rebelling against his mum, and mum sending him off to his room. If you look at the pictures in the beginning of the book, it's a stark white background, and it goes from black print on white and small images in the pictures, then the small images start to grow. Those images represent (Max) growing consciousness and moving toward his own reality in his mind."

As Max's imagination grows, Baker pointed out, "the pictures begin to move across double-page spreads.... You have these magnificent images, this story happening in the pictures, which the untrained eye doesn't pick up on, of his journey from the reality of his home to his escape to where the Wild Things are, in his imagination."

"As a veteran children's librarian, I join many in regarding Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are as a landmark in children's book publishing," wrote Laura Weigand, the director of the Reynolda branch of the Forsyth County Public Library.

"Sendak's work won the Caldecott Award in 1964 for the best illustrated children's book, but to me the subdued art is just a bonus in this groundbreaking publication. For the first time in children's literature, an author dealt with the emotional life of a child, a concern that belongs on a very short list of what matters most in the world. Sendak paved the way for other author/illustrators such as Rosemary Wells, Kevin Henkes, and the team of Gloria and Jerry Pinkney.

"Trends today seem to focus on illustrations only, with the storyline only secondary. So we need to look to Where the Wild Things Are as a reminder of the types of books we should be sharing with our children: stories that validate their feelings and lift them to think, 'I can.'"

Jamie Patterson Seay wrote that "Where the Wild Things Are was one of my favorite books as a child and still remains one of my favorites. I always wondered why Max wasn't scared of the Wild Things: especially their yellow eyes!"

Now 30, Seay has a reminder of her childhood favorite roaming around her home.

"My middle cat is Max - King of all the Wild Things," she wrote. "As a kitten he had a small head with big pointy ears and, to me, he looked just like the character Max dressed in his wolf suit."

Terri Hill, a former Winston-Salem native who now lives in Chamblee, Ga., wrote that Where the Wild Things Are remains her favorite book.

"I can't begin to explain how many times I have read this book when I was a little girl," she wrote. "I can remember wanting to almost get inside the book."

And she is now sharing it with the next generation. "I have read it to my son when he was younger and he just loved it. He's now 17 years old and he reads it to his little sister who is mesmerized by the story (she's 6)."

All said that they are eager to see the live-action rendition.

"Now that a movie has come out, oh, my kids and I will be there, front row," Hill wrote.

"I can't wait to see the movie," Seay said. "I hope it doesn't disappoint."

Weigand summed up her feelings on the film adaptation of the much-loved book this way: "I'm really hoping the movie does it justice."

Baker said he also plans to check out the film, though he is a bit skeptical.

"I am surprised (Sendak) went for it," he said. "It's such a classic. I hope it works out for him, but it could be just another piece of schlock in the zeitgeist.... It's a risk, because every generation loves it and there's a reason for that. It's such a beautifully composed book, between the pictures and the print."

Tim Clodfelter writes for the Winston-Salem Journal.

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