How a Classic Children’s Book Introduced Kids (and Adults) to Their Inner Demons | Monstrum
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 ต.ค. 2024
- As a kid, the monsters in Where the Wild Things Are were downright frightening. But thinking about the book as an adult, it’s clear there’s something deeper to this fantastically monstrous story.
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It's kinda hilarious how we have this perception of kids being innocent when kids revel in the taboo/forbidden and will often seek out the strange and frightening for themselves. I had an elementary student tell me her favorite movie is SCREAM (1996). Kids like monsters and scary things, whether parents want to admit it or not.
Sometimes they'll like things just because they're taboo.
Adults don't like to expose kids to these things because it would require explaining these things. And goodness knows they don't want to do that.
Agreed! My favorite movie has been Jurassic Park since I was 7. But my big brothers got in trouble for that one… lol
Really good point about the taboo. Even when I was little, and the internet wasn't really everywhere, we'd look up swear words in the dictionary
This attitude toward children varies across cultures and eras. A number of European cultures don’t see children as “innocent” and often use fear to teach them to behave.
The torture fantasies I came up with when I were seven were probably more extreme (and more likely to need an age rating) than anything I write now that I'm grown. And I don't write children's literature or YA; it's mostly adult fantasy. I wasn't even consuming particularly dark media at the time. No horror movies, nothing particularly violent. All the insane edgelord violence in my little baby self's DIY bedtime stories came straight from me.
My mother’s master’s thesis was about Maurice Sendak, and she spent a week with him to discuss his monsters. I didn’t realize as a small child that the drawings of monsters in our downstairs library were actually Sendak originals. I was able to have wonderful conversations with my mother about this book once I got old enough to understand.
Can you share that with the rest of the class? 👀
How precious the memories of those conversations must be
That's really awesome!
A bunch of riled up adults talking about how children’s should be wholesome and pure and not show bad behaviour? Nice to know nothing has changed 🌝
A bunch of self-righteous jerks getting bent out of shape about kids being kids?
This book also came out when boomers were still being born and (obviously not all of them) quite a lot of boomers have inherited this mindset. Like yes kids can be impressionable but kids aren't as hollow minded as adults think
luv that you're in every channel i watch
Kind of like how your kids treated me eh?
I more often see adults get all riled up when they see any element of folklore or a story they like receive a version that is more wholesome or cleaned up for kids.
That makes the nerds really mad.
And that’s dumb.
The original work will always exist, why not let kids have a cleaned up version?
Something similar happened with “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” when I was young. There are folks who cannot be made to see the value in letting kids confront fear in safe ways (possibly because they weren’t afforded the experience themselves) and their predictable response is to ban the things that scare them.
Well worded, and very insightful. Book banning was so hard for me to wrap my mind around (even though I consider myself to be pretty strong in the empathy department), but I think you hit the nail on the head. That’s the only way they know how to address their fears, because they didn’t get the practice they needed as children. I hope your comment winds up being on top!
@@shelbylynn9 Ironic that they go after fictional books of fictional terrors, thinking that will protect the kiddies and they don't try to solve the problems of the real horrors that kids have to deal with growing up. Things like, oh, poverty and food insecurity and abusive parents and mass shootings in schools.
@@MatrixRefugee Nailed it.
Oh man, I read those books as a kid. They were super scary, and super trippy. So entertaining. Guillermo del Toro turned a few of those stories into a movie a few years ago. It's a fun watch.
Considering how popular 'mascot horror' is among kids nowadays, I don't think anyone would claim its too creepy nowadays, haha!
It still baffles my that Five Nights at Freddy’s is something kids get into.
@@zacharybartolo5111fear is truth. Fear dance with Miss death all our life. From begining to the end.
@@zacharybartolo5111it used to be a pretty scary horror series, but once more and more kids started flocking to it, they made the games more family friendly, unfortunately
The monsters in the book are cuddly compared to most monsters kids see.
@@zacharybartolo5111 Yeah lol, I became a FNAF kid when the first game came out. I guess it appealed to 10-year-old me by how interesting it was to see animal-robot characters that were made for kids, actually being murderous and possessed.
Roald Dahl, Coraline, every classic fairytale ever… there are many great scary, violent or gross stories for children. Kids aren’t unfinished adults, they have complicated emotions of their own and they deserve emotionally rich stories. It’s the parents’ job, like Max’ mother, to guide their kids and keep them save on that journey.
There is strong symbolism in the monsters crowning the boy king. It basically is a statement about self-control. He is the one in charge of his fears and impulses, not the other way around.
Yeah, I got the "escapism out of frustration and anger to release emotion" relation to the book a lot as a kid. The personified emotions trying to "eat you up" hits harder as an adult.
Well worded ❤
Absolutely agree! I usually write stories or create dark fantasy art to help me cope with certain emotions. They can be scary at times, but it helps me cope with certain emotions.
"Too violent and too scary for kids."
I'm glad I guess that i grew up when they showed Watership Down at school.
Or how I got to read George's Marvelous Medicine when I was in middle school. My little brother got to read The Witches during middle school, and my mom helped him. I would hear my mom narrate the tale, and it did scare me as a kid whenever I got curious. Years later, I like getting scared either through old Gothic literature, modern horror movies, or mixed media video games. They scare me, but I always liked it.
Maybe I'm weird (no, scratch that; I _know_ I'm weird), but I always thought the monsters in the book seemed friendly and a lot of fun. I never read it as a kid because I was eight when it was published and a little old for it but I did read it as an adult and enjoyed it immensely. If I were Max, I wouldn't want to leave.
"Where the Wild Things Are' is visionary.
Edit: The book's range may be broader than at first glance, I think it also addresses trauma, at whatever age.
I also really loved the movie. Max in that was a seriously traumatized kid, dealing with (presumably) the death of his father. I had a friend who hated it because Max was so very bad. But exploring trauma and pain is super important for kids. They _will_ experience it and media like "Where the Wild Things Are" gives them tools to understand it.
When i was a child it never occurred to me that where the wild things are was supposed to be scary. It was an adventure story so if course there needed to be some sort of monster. But these monsters were friends once you looked past their teeth and claws and horns.
I also saw it as an adventure story and loved the monsters. It made me sad when Max went back home.
I love how the illustrations in the book start small and then get bigger and bigger until the full page climax, then taper off and get smaller again until the end when he's back in his room. I think that shows that his fantasy world is more real and vivid to him than his normal life.
I loved this book for my first son (now 28) and have given it to just about every young child among family and friends. Yes, it's dark. Life for kids can be dark. It addresses hard feelings like anger, helplessness, fear of abandonment. Pretending that kids should only have happy and positive media is a direct insult to their lived understanding of the world.
Exactly. My dad embraced this kind of media for and when I asked as an adult why, he said “I wanted you to understand that the world isn’t always a nice place”. It wasn’t traumatizing or being cold; he just wanted us to have some reference or context for the inevitable tough times that come with life.
@@esteemedmortal5917 I can't remember where this quote came from, but I still love it. "We don't tell our children stories of monsters to teach them that monsters exist. Even children know that there are real life monsters. We tell them these stories to show them that the monsters can be defeated." In Where the Wild Things Are the monsters are the internal demons of difficult emotions. And indeed the story ends with those monsters tamed and Max back in a safe place after dealing with them.
"Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten." -Neil Gaiman
@@robertlukens4552 Thank you!
@@robertlukens4552 I thought that quote was from G.K. Chesterton.
I was terrified of monsters as a child, to the point the fear helped develop an anxiety disorder. Creating and drawing my own monsters took away the fear and I still draw them as a 43 yr old now. I do think parents should be very careful with what they expose their children too, taking into account whether or not it is age appropriate and whether or not it may traumatize the child; and I’m saying that as an ex early childhood teacher and as a child who was traumatized. If the child is fine with the scary stuff, cool, just be there to help them process it.
For the love of every god and goddess in existence, what is WRONG with people? I grew up on the Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, and all those giant critter horror movies popular back in the 60's and early 70's. Loved Godzilla. Not to mention the original Dark Shadows, which I watched religiously as a child until it was cancelled. Vampires, werewolves, witches, demons - loved it. Every single one of them. Then there were all of the old horror movies during Halloween. HEAVEN for my childhood watching. My parents were responsible for far more nightmares than all of the above put together. Jeepers, watch an old, un-censored Buggs Bunny from the time. Give me a break. If I had a child (well, at this point, it would be a grandchild), I would watch Where The Wild Things Are with them, after reading the book, which I happen to own. Kids aren't fragile pieces of spun glass that need to be wrapped in sheets of bubble wrap. Give them some credit.
I was given this book when it was first published in the UK and I loved it. There was a very limited moral panic about it. Mostly from people who hadn't even seen it and didn't have children. The Brothers Grimm had very scary and gruesome stories. Red hot iron shoes, being ripped to pieces inside a barrel of spikes etc.
Oh boy if thats isnt usually how it goes, people without children refusing to watch or read something then lecture us about why the government needs to these random people to bring back censorship
I remember reading this book as a child. While I want to respect everyone’s parenting choices it upsets me how books awarded or not are disappearing from shelves due to sensitive parents. I get scared super easily, but even I wouldn’t want to extinguish a child’s desire to read if I thought the book was scary or show bad behavior. Heck I was watching animal documentaries showing animals hunting and devouring them when I was in elementary school and I didn’t try to hunt other people. We can’t protect children from everything and that should not be feared. Honestly this is hurting authors and the kids more than anything.
I enjoyed the Spike Jonze movie version of "Where the Wild Things Are" when I realized that it was all about using Max's journey to help children identify & consciously feel their always shifting emotional states.
Something also that many adults (formerly kids) may have missed out on in their childhoods as well.
Wild Thing's and Max's Purple Crayon were two of my favorite books as a child.
Same, but is that Harold and the Purple Crayon maybe … I loved that one
And alicein wonderland beyond the looking glass. I was fascinated by the Jaberwocky.
No more monsters for me Minneapolis Simpkin.
Oh and the Grimm fairytales.
This was one if my favourite books as a kid. Thanks for doing it justice.
I’m a Brazilian English teacher, and in one of our many literary presentations I adapted this book into a musical. Some parents were worried, some were confused, but all of them loved to see their little monsters sing in English.
It's actually a great book because it shows how to complete a stress cycle. I had a lot of rage problems as a small child because of trauma and this was one of the books my Mom read with me and we always screamed and roared and danced around when she thought I needed to read it!
The point seems to be that it's good to expose kids to a little bit of fear when they're young so that they'll be able to handle it more in adulthood. The same can be said for obscenity as well as fear. Many say that Shrek is too inappropriate for kids, what with the "compensating for something" line and a few other suggestive features. Well, does the same logic not apply?
This is why Halloween is my favorite holiday. Make the scary acceptable, so people learn to handle feeling scared and how to get over it. Sometimes I wonder if that alone would actually help with a number of social issues like bigotry and xenophobia
Like Aurelio Voltaire says in his song "Goodnight Demonslayer":
"The monsters are real but then not in your dreams
Learn what you can from the beasts you defeat
You'll need it for some of the people you meet"
YES!!👏👏 YES!! LOVE his songs! They're so much fun! The perfect balance of being a little scary but also fun all at once!!
0:24 ‘Monsters Inc.: The Prequel’.
Wonderful narrative on a wonderful book! It constantly amazes me that there are people who allow (or push) kids to read (frequently terrifying!) bible stories, but can’t recognise that young people need and enjoy scary tales, especially when they have a safe or happy resolution.
Many people who survived childhood trauma got through because of monster-y fiction and fantasy. The levels of literary censorship around what people are able to deal with is frightening, especially considering the evils that are highlighted on the daily dinnertime news. I would give a kid Where The Wild Things Are (and the monsters of Dr Who!) any day over exposure to TV news.
This story resonated deeply with me, as a kid who had an overactive imagination, and a lot of unprocessed emotions. I still think fondly of my wild things, and occasionally return to be their king for a night or two in my dreams.
❤❤❤❤
as this story resembles, it resembles in some ways Christopher Robin going to the Hundred Acre Wood with Winnie the Pooh, I could say that Max goes to his "island of Wild Things" or "the island of Max's beasts".
in my childhood I saw many films and cartoons which in theory were or are for children, but which left me shivering:
from Disney I have to mention for example: Pinocchio (Coachman especially when he does his "evil face" and Lampwick when he transforms into a donkey: to the werewolf style and the whale when he wanted to "take revenge" against Pinocchio and his father), Aladdin: (Jafar when he transforms into a cobra and in the sequel), Beauty and the Beast (the Beast when he was too "Beastly" and Gaston when he shows his true nature: if I can say as the type of scene when Gaston faces the Beast, it can remind you of when Theseus killed the Minotaur), Alice in Wonderland (when the hot-headed Queen of Hearts loses his temper and Alice's return to reality: too scary for me) and also 3 other films perhaps not so well known but excellent quotes: Who Framed Roger Rabbit (Judge Doom aka "red-eyed cartoon" especially when he uses the "Dip" and we include his horrible end, together with his five weasel minions), Basil the Great Mouse Detective (Professor Ratigan the criminal mastermind whom Basil: the parody of Sherlock Holmes, when from anger he "transforms" to the werewolf style and Fidget's attacks the bat the assistant of Ratigan) and The Black Cauldron (a sort of Disney version of the "lord of the rings", with The Horned King cruel and terrifying and with his army of "zombie warriors").
from other non-Disney films I had seen as a boy, I quote for example: We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story is an animated film from 1993 (with Professor Screweyes who devolves the children into mindless chimpanzees using his "Brain Drain" pills), The Swan Princess from 1994 (Rothbart transforms into a "Great Animal" = a sort of mammalian wyvern), 1997 Anastasia: (Rasputin in appearance and powers including his horrible end).
but like Max who uses his "Wild Things", I found a way to use creatures and monsters that hadn't scared me, using them as "anti-monsters" that is, monsters and the like that "protect" me from these old fears (for example against the Judge Doom: I think of a cross between the Blob and a fire hydrant filled with his own "Dip" and the Lernaean Hydra. If this isn't terrifying for the "Judge" I don't know what could be) .
This was just the video I needed to watch after a difficult nap time routine with my toddler. Wasn't expecting sound parenting advice but it was greatly appreciated. He loves spooky things (age appropriate) and we talk about our "big emotions" all the time. I'm excited to add this book to our story time rotation!
I hope your toddler will have a wonderful life ahead with you. It can be hard, but know you'll do great as a parent.❤🫂
It's funny, I had this book as a child and the monsters didn't bother me at all. I thought they were funny. What bothered me was the picture of Max chasing the dog with a fork. I was scared for the dog.
When I was in my 30s, I saw it in a book store and I had to buy it. As an adult... first, I loved the illustrations as art. Second, I got a lot of "meaning" out of it that I didn't before. I majored in English, so I was taught to pick things apart to find allegories and metaphors and symbolism. The funny thing about that is, that was all stuff I, as an adult, was reading into the book. I was really overcomplicating something I had always loved for its simplicity.
Sometimes monsters can be fun.
7:32 THE CLAPBACK! UGH LOVE IT ❤
Honestly iconic-*Dr. Z*
Good take. I never found the monsters in the least bit scary when I was a kid though, they weren't human so they were much LESS scary, they tried but easily failed, and were friendly and let the kid feel his feelings and go through it. I never thought of it as a story about overcoming any sort of fear, the kid in the story had no fear of them to overcome, but a story of acceptance in spite of appearances, how you can make friends with people (or monsters) through shared experiances and emotions rather than based on how different they might look.
I just never saw anything dark at all about it, it was beautiful and vibrant and exploratory and freeing.
As a child I was scared of everything. (There was a picture of a demon looking through French Doors in a kids’ book I saw in 1st grade. 41 years later it still freaks me out to be alone at night in my parents’ living room.)
Nevertheless, I was never frightened on these monsters. I didn’t even know they were supposed to be scary until watching this video.
They are all smiling giant muppets. I’m pretty sure there is a muppet that looks like the main guy. And Cookie Monster, Grover, and Telly are all monsters (cf there’s a monster at the end of this book.)
Looking back, I never thought they represented fear or lived in a scary place. I always thought they represented Max’s energy, defiance, hyperactivity, anger, and indignation. He goes to a land where he is unburdened of stricture and finds his people. Though he ultimately tires of it mentally and physically. Really nothing scary about that.
Looking at the illustrations again is interesting. I find it funny that he has a four-poster bed that is incredibly short.
People saying the "Where the Wild Things Are" movie is too scary for kids - have you SEEN what children watched in the 80s?!
I love monsters in books! speically when i was a kid , My fav story is Billy Goats Gruff with the troll under the bridge! xxx
On the first day of my Writing About Literature course in college, our professor read us Where the Wild Things Are, and we spent the rest of class having a discussion about its themes. It was the first time I had ever read the book, despite knowing about it all my life. While I didn't necessarily enjoy that class, I still feel grateful to that professor for introducing me to this book, which has since become my favorite.
As someone who had an active imagination as a boy I can kind of relate to Max. I would yell at my parents and pull pranks sometimes around the house. I do wonder if Max has ADD. Could you have relate to Max if you read this book when you were a boy?
@@huntercoleman460 Oh, absolutely. Hell, I relate to Max now, the only real difference being that I know when to reign it in so that it's funny and social instead of "disruptive."
@@TheDuckOfManyThings I think we all have a little Max in us. Especially those who are creative and have a good imagination. I relate to Max too. There will always be that imaginative little boy we all were once in us don’t you agree?
One of the very very best books, ever.
And honestly the 2009 movie? Spot-on, expanding on the book in ways that only a movie can do, and exploring even MORE fears.
The scene where the sort-of female monster says "I'll eat you up"? It's both incredible and terrifying, in the same moment and for some of the same reasons too.
I could go on for ages about this book AND about the movie. I was a grown woman when I saw the film and yet for the space of Max's adventure, I was eight years old again, the world was full of frustration and rage, I was a Wild Thing again and loving it. And yet I wanted to go home too.
And the single line at the end of the book has always, always stayed with me. "And it was still hot."
That means so much more than just a warm meal waiting for him. It means his mother loves him, even if he is a Wild Thing. It speaks safety and care and being treasured. I couldn't explain, when I was eight, why that line, that page, made me cry. Now I know why, and it makes me cry harder to fully understand what Max knew that I didn't.
A quote from the movie “A Haunting In Venice” by the character Ariadne Oliver: Scary stories make real life a little less scary.
I think tales of monsters and scary stories give children (and adults) a way to learn to handle their fear in a controlled and safe environment. My much older siblings had a record of scary stories which I first heard as a toddler. I didn’t fully understand the stories but knew they were meant to be spooky by the music and ambient sounds. I think that is where my love of supernatural, scary stories stems from. My favorite was the Japanese tale written by Lafcadio Hearn called “The Boy Who Drew Cats”.
I loved this book so much as a kid that my 77 year old mother still comments on it today! She tells me that we went through multiple copies from reading it so often at bedtime. I remember walking into a comic shop in my 20s and the utter joyous shock that someone had made action figures of Max and the Wild Things. I found the money to take them home and still treasure them, decades later!
Sendak interviews are the very best. Please look some up, fellow commenters!
I never found the book that dark. The monsters look grubby, but their also these smiling, tubby , friendly hairy and dirty things--troll-like without some of the grosser aspects. Like Max, they just want a good place to put a lot of wild energy that is, mostly, positive stuff. I like that the story both acknowledges the issues with Max's need to positively let out his crazy elemental energy, and affirms that maybe it's good for him to be the great king monster. When that's cast as positive and given a supportive outlet in a natural environment where Max has room and license to go wild, he naturally comes back to civilization again, confident that he can control his wild side and the issues it causes. Rather than wilting in shame from his mother's discipline, he finds a safe space to continue all the way to the end of his wild path rambunctiously and joyfully, and then he's free to choose to be not only the ideal wild thing, but the most ideal civilized thing, because he comes to it naturally by his own thought process and body. I think parents really struggle to discipline rowdy kids, usually boys, without shaming them or breaking their spirit, which has to do with their wild side too. This book really tries to consider that dynamic in a kind and productive way.
I was kind of obsessed with that book in kindergarten because the school had a copy, but we weren't allowed to read it because some local church had said it was "too scary" for kids. So, there it sat, tantalizing us, just out of reach.
I eventually saw it at a bookstore and begged my dad to buy it. I think I read it a dozen times that night.
All this is to say to fundamentalists, your book bans just make us want to check these books out more.
And _this_ is why even as a 32-going-on-33 adult, “Where the Wild Things Are (both the book and the 2009 film)” will _always_ hold a significant place in my life (👏).
I used to work in a daycare with 2 year olds. I regularly read them this book & the Little Critter series by Mercer Meyer. The kids loved them.
Awww~ How sweet! Means you're doing great as a daycare teacher.🫂🫂
this Book teaches us to be Not just Good Kid, but also be Brave against our own Fear and Darkness!
This book confused me as a young child. I couldn't understand how his dinner was still warm after he had been gone for so long. The trip took a year, each way.
I remember reading about How Maurice Sendak sent a young fan who wrote him a letter an original drawing and the child's mother wrote back to tell him the kid loved it so much he ate it. Sendak insisted it was the greatest compliment he had ever received.
I loved this book as a child and identified with Max as millions of others did. It was a relief to know that 'mum' had something to eat and that no matter what gnashing of teeth or terrible claws, if there be monsters, if Max be the monster, Max was loved. I read it to my own children.
Children are people and this book treats them as such and somehow we sometimes forget just how much they know.
Little people appreciate this.
I love this book, and I read it to my kids regularly from very young ages.They were big fans, too, and it didn't make them very scared
This book has been a favorite of mine since I was a child. I never found it scary.
I always loved this story, it told you how to defeat the monsters - look 'em straight on the eye. Face 'em. Used it a LOT, I needed it.
As a young child, I never thought the monsters were scary, only intriguing.
Wow, I haven’t read this book in so long that I’m surprised that I can recall that entirely, thanks to you, Dr. Zarka. From this summary, it makes sense of why the story is the way it is because it reflects our inner desires to be loose and carefree. Now that I’m thinking about it, I’ve always felt that I was more connected with the animals that I learned throughout my life than people. If I had the chance to see all the natural wonders and the creatures that call it home, I’d take it because nothing would make me happier than being one with nature.
Kids get scared. Why act like that doesn’t happen or isn’t appropriate? As long as it’s age-appropriate, that’s exactly what children’s media should do.
I think my dad loved reading this book to us more than we did. He loved harumphing around and acting out the ruckus with us. He always loved watching our movies and shows with us. I think it’s because his childhood took place in post WW2 Greece and subsequent civil strife. I don’t think he got much a childhood, so books like this was a way to connect with us.
Miss you dad ❤
I grew up with Earl Carle as a kid and my dad would always read Good Night Moon to me. It was such a wondrous time whenever he was in my bedroom as a kid. I know how it feels to lose a dad, but know that he's always with you on spirit. You're his little one, and he'll always love you.🫂🫂
@@sapphirejade5029thank you ❤
This is why I have my own copy.. plus at least two stuffies of Max.
My first first comment! Woo! Love these videos!
Max's greatest power was the magic trick of staring into all their yellow eyes without blinking once. 🤭 This is one of my favorite books to this day.
As a child, I didn't like this book because I thought the artwork was ugly. As an adult, I can see that it's actually very good and unique.
So sweet 😊 I loved the book and especially the illustrations I loved drawing and it helped. Love Max. Bless your gingerbread hearts.🧹💫🎃🪄💥✨💫🗝️
I know the book was featured in Labyrinth, a classic.
In high school, one wall in the choir room was painted with the Wild Things. Every time I try to learn new music, I think about those Wild Things on the wall.
Wait! A book cameo?! I think I saw it, too!😯
When I was growing up, Goosebumps was the book series everybody was up in arms about.
The BEST part is coming home to discover supper ... and it was still hot.
Mom might have been mad at him, but she calmed down and cared for him, always.
I'm a retired school librarian.
P.S. I have my own copy of this!
Sendak's interview on Colbert years ago is so good
I agree with this analysis in general. Children are really just small adults with less experience in the world, and they need exposure to stuff like this to grow and understand. You can't just expect someone who's never been confronted with things before to suddenly understand because they're 18 now. I'm gonna have to acquire a copy of this book.
Some of my earliest memories are from a kindergarten Where The Wild Things Are play I was in. I remember us making our wild thing costumes and having so much fun being monstrous on stage. It was a great experience
Having fun isn't hard, when you got a library card 💳 🎶
This book helped me soo much as a child, especially with anxiety. To this day, I am unphased by most horror stories and I do feel more equipped for the real horrors of the world out there. I can't imagine why people try to keep it out of childrens hands - as if the monsters in the closet or under the bed weren't way scarier.
Thank you for turning a book that I didn't care too much for into one that I can now appreciate
I think you explained this beautifully. How you and Sendak talked about it is exactly how I saw it and connected with it; both as a child and later as a parent. I still love this book,and I thought the movie was brilliant!! Weird, sad, wild, moving, and beautiful. ❤
I don't mind a PBS review of children's books, it could be its own series here, but why on Monstrum? There are millions of monsters, cryptids, folklore, mythical beasts, etc... around the world. I know you probably don't want to do some minute and a half video describing something very short or basic that is just a regional variant or a locally specific version of something or lacks publicly available information in great detail like making a video on Robert Roundcap or the Nibiinashe, or something...or making it a series about every random haunting. But there are still plenty with longer backstories out there this series hasn't covered yet, or approach cultural universals that have specific variations like the prevalence of the supernatural bride (which has three variations, kidnapped bride, predatory entity, or inhuman being that snuck into a person's life), or the odd prevalence of wild women with long dresses and long wild hair as supernatural beings (most versions of which can easily carry their own episode, Vila, Sanzianna, Iele, Enchanted Moura, Wiite Wieven, etc... Honestly you could make a series just on Fae or Yokai and have plenty to work with.
This and the audiobook "Grisly tales for Gruesome Kids" were my childhood.
Sense you've done monsters mostly for kids how about a monster that is exclusively for adults: the alluring succubus
As someone drawn to scary stories as both a child and later as an adult, books and film are a great way to face fear in a way that 1) we know is not real and cannot harm us, and 2) that we are in control of and can walk away from if it gets to be too much. Sure, we shouldn't necessarily expose kiddos to things that are too dark and traumatic for them to digest at their age/comprehension level, but we also can't completely shelter them to the point where they can't cope with uncomfortable realities or difficult feelings.
It doesn't surprise me to learn that Sendak had an opera. He was the set designer for the Nutcracker in Seattle when I was a kid. The livingroom designed so that it looked great for the dance party, but legitimately grew during the mice scene. You didn't have to imagine what it felt like to have that shrinking nightmare; you were right there in it.
“Those critical of the book were missing the subtext.”
Shocking. People who seek to ban books wouldn’t know subtext if it bit them on the ass.
Adults do their best to ruin the fun of childhood. - generation after generation. Sometimes grandparents are there to save the day.
7:25 that seems so in character for him to say 😂 And there's the irony that, in a loose sense, he's not just telling the adults off, but also to go experience the monsters for themselves.
I think it is precisely within fiction that it is the safest place to explore your darkest thoughts.
It _is_ a book for everyone. Thank you!
We'd appreciate it if you made videos about the following monsters:
-KELPIES
-BOOBRIES
-THE BUARACH-BHAOI
-JIANGSHI, THE CHINESE HOPPING VAMPIRE
Maybe I'm misremembering my childhood, but I don't think I ever thought of the monsters as scary. They seemed about as threatening to 4yo me as Barney the purple dinosaur and Chuck E Cheese or the Tasmanian Devil from loony toons. How did parents think it was in anyway scary compared to any other children's entertainment?
My favorite book as a kid!
I loved the books. I thought the monsters were gonna come to take me to play and dance. Spooky and kooky still am.
Also puberty, impending normal sexuality & adult/child sexual abuse, sadly....
It's so surreal to me that this book was banned for being "top scary." When I was a kid, I LOVED this book. I didn't think the monsters were scary at all. They were silly to my eyes, and even as a kid, I realized they taught Max a valuable lesson about life. It was a book my mother and I bonded over; she always told me "no matter what you do, I'll always be here for you. I may not like your actions, but I will ALWAYS love you."
It's not just the books, the 2009 Warner Bros film adaptation directed by Spike Jonze that takes an interesting approach.
All I know is that Mark Ruffalo must have been throwing things when he lost the voiceover roll.
I'm having a hard time relating to this video, as its interpretation of this book runs completely opposite to how I experienced the book as a child. I not only loved "Where the Wlid Things Are" as a kid, but it NEVER occurred to me to be scared of the story or its monsters. To me, the kids at school who bullied me were my childhood demons, and Max and his friendly monsters were my allies and role models to affirm myself despite my peers' derision.
It’s easy to rail against the adults who spoke against this book but the irony is that they’re pretty afraid themselves. They’re afraid that their kids could end up messed up by some sort of fear-induced trauma. Like Max, they’re experiencing their own “big feelings”. It’s just theirs don’t make them want to bite and scratch and howl at the moon.
It's interesting to see this book get an analysis many years later after its publishing. I recall the tale now and seeing it on a DVD once with others. I think it was a Scholastic storybook DVD, where the pictures were brought to life. Maybe I did read the book as a kid? I don’t recall, but again, I'm still happy that this tale is still being seen today. Years later, I write and draw content that can be frightening to some viewers. I find it cathartic and a good way to cope with certain emotions instead of hurting someone. I get questioned about it by my family, but I usually don't mind. Again, it helps me calm down, and it feels right. Sometimes, we need to be scared, or we have to see things that are flat out disturbing, even in childhood. It's okay, and I like it. Sure, you’ll be scared, but it's okay. No one gets hurt, and I like it.
I never really understood this book, but now I get why people love it. I shall have to read it again
I don't know if you take suggestions from comments, but the tatzelwyrm was something I was aware of as a kid and had appeared in some media I watched as a child, just curious what you might dig up on the creature
Saying that children shouldn't be allowed to experience fear, a very basic human emotion, is to deny the reality of life. The world is a scary, big place when one is little. It only marginally improves as one gets bigger.
The Book was Fantastic, but The Movie was Better. (my opinion) 😅
I did not enjoy this book as a child, it scared me. I don't think I understood it at all. Maybe it's because I have really bad anxiety and I'm autistic. I'm sure it's a good book, I just don't understand it and that's ok.
I had no idea anyone would consider the monsters scary, they're just so friendly.
i love this book! infact the korean boy group tomorrow x together even explored this book in some of there concepts and comebacks!!
Thanks for pronouncing 'Minotaur' correctly. (Meow.)
Can't watch now at work but thanks!