Where the Wild Things Are

I took my son's girlfriend's 4-yr. old boy to the movie "Where the Wild Things Are" last Friday. Despite the fact that two tickets, plus one box of popcorn and two small drinks cost $13 (discount rate) at the movies, I was hoping for a delightful afternoon adventure, and was hoping Michael would enjoy it as well (If truth be known, I wanted to see the movie and needed a child to take me!).

I read the Maurice Sendak picture book several years ago, when I was taking a class in Children's Literature as part of the Early Childhood program at the local college. I really enjoyed the book, even though there were only 10 words of text in the entire book, the pictures told the story. Evidently many others thought highly of it as well, since it won the prestigious Caldecott Medal for the best illustration of a book in Children's Literature in 1964. It also won the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, and was an American Library Association Notable Book.

The wonderful thing about "Where the Wild Things Are" is that it shows children they can use their imagination to explore and create. It also shows that there is nothing wrong with wanting to get away from their normal life for a little while. After all, where would we be if there was no imagination - there would be no books, no movies, no video games, etc.

I was disappointed in the movie. I felt it lost a lot of opportunities to teach children how to deal with being isolated, feeling left out, dealing rationally with anger, and including everyone - no matter how different they looked. It addressed a few of these issues, but not in depth enough to teach anything.

The characters were cute, and parts of the movie was funny, but the bad behavior of the boy was not dealt with. What it did teach was that people sometimes get angry and deal with it in different ways. Also, despite how bad you are you're parents will love you and worry about your safety (at least most parents will).

I would have liked to see the main character - Max, learn something more than the fact that he didn't want to really be anywhere but home, no matter how much fun it was to be away.

If someone has a comment about this, please feel free to respond.