The Wild Thing

Little Da is our Wild Thing. There is something a bit feral about him, even in the midst of his uncommon courtesy and self control. While he is, indeed, the child who only two days ago at a birthday party espied a couple of stray marshmallows and asked, carefully, "Can I eat these?", he's also got this full set of sharp-looking teeth that he bares while laughing a slightly untamed laugh. His canines are no laughing matter--Dubya's got their imprint in his back as we speak, having suffered the payback of some transgression involving a golf club/light-saber/sword that Little "had first." Yes, we're working on using our words instead of our teeth.

Given his edge of ferality (is "ferality" a word? No matter), it may come as no surprise that of all of our children, this one loves Where the Wild Things Are the most. They've all liked it, but he's a boy obsessed. We read it--and have been reading it for at least a year--on a nightly basis, many many times in a row. And his favorite parts are when Max's mom calls him "Wild thing!" and when Max calls for the "wild rumpus" to start.

Do you remember the first time you encountered this most insightful of children's books? For some reason, I do. I was three. It was in my grandmother's kindergarten. Ruling from a wheelchair, she ran a private kindergarten from the "carriage house" behind her home, and the place was packed with books, one of which was this Maurice Sendak classic. I found it in a pile in the corner. I opened it. The Wild Things looked like friends to me, but edgy, unpredictable friends who might, at any minute, perhaps bite you "just to see." And I completely identified with it, the getting in trouble, the satisfying fear, the edgy Wild Thing companionship, the safe retreat to one's own room.

It wasn't until I started reading the book to my own children, however, that I realized the depth of those 10 lines of words. Max steps into a self-created adult world in the place where the Wild Things are. He becomes that adult bossing him around. He practices adult behaviors, punishing his own perceived malfeasance in others, exorcising childhood shame, taking control where he's had none. Then, he wearies of being a grownup and wants, simply, to be a child again. A foray into a scary world followed up by the safety of his own room and a hot supper waiting for him. The hopes and fears of childhood all packaged neatly and wildly into those ten lines.

Now, there's a movie. I'd heard the trailer was a tad scary. So, I watched it. And Little came to watch with me. Again. And again. And again. Every night now, as many times as I can tolerate, we watch that trailer. And there are two moments in it when my semi-feral little Wild Thing shows those terrible teeth of his and cuts loose with that edge-of-safety laugh: When Max calls out, "Let the wild rumpus start!" and when a Wild Thing says to Max, "I'll eat you up, I love you so." It reaches right to Little's core, and his whole body reacts with the thrill of it. Every. Single. Time.

I've seen reviews of this film, all of them adult written, of course. And I've not seen the movie myself--I'll be taking the two older kids next week. But based on this trailer and my own Wild Thing's reaction to it, I'd say that some adults may not remember that edgy, fearsome world of childhood pretending and sharp-toothed adult behaviors that, if we were lucky, we only acted out as imaginary play before returning to the safety of our own rooms, a hot supper waiting for us. And then, some of us do remember, quite clearly. Sendak--and apparently Spike Jonze--seem to recall with native, persistent intuition that for children, in their heads and outside their heads, Here There Be Monsters. That they always live in their minds where the Wild Things are.