FROM THE PUBLISHER

Max is sent to bed without supper and imagines sailing away to the land of Wild Things,where he is made king.

FROM THE CRITICS

SLJ
Each word has been carefully chosen and the simplicity of the language is quite deceptive.

Children's Literature - Mary Quattlebaum

Sendak presents an image of children not as sentimentalized little dears but as people coping with complex emotions such as anger, fear, frustration, wonder, and awareness of their own vulnerability. Max feels anger at his mother, acts out his aggression in a fantasy land as he becomes "king" of his wild and ungovernable forces, and returns hungry, sleepy, and peaceful to the real world, where his porridge is still hot. This is a well-earned and reassuring happy ending for all children wrestling with human nature's darker emotions.