Books

[New York]: Harper & Row, 1963. Near fine in very good plus jacket.. Lovely first edition of the subversive Caldecott-award winner, in the rare original first-issue dust jacket. After illustrating nearly 50 other books, WILD THINGS was Sendak's first full-color picture book with his own text and illustrations. He took full advantage of that control to push the boundaries of the children's picture book genre. The story of a boy who gets in a fight with his mother and lets out his pent up feelings in a fantastical Wild Rumpus, WILD THINGS focused on the complex inner experience of little Max, acknowledging the reality that children deal with anger, frustration, and fear just as adults do. For this reason, the book was initially not well received: before the rise of New Realism in children's literature, many critics felt children's books ought to model ideal behavior rather than accurately reflect children's emotional experiences. The book made a splash from the very beginning, as…

Where the Wild Things Are is a 1963 children's picture book by American writer and illustrator Maurice Sendak, originally published by Harper & Row. The book has been adapted into other media several times, including an animated short in 1973 (with an updated version in 1988), a 1980 opera, and a live-action 2009 feature-film adaptation. The book tells the story of Max, a young boy who dresses up as a wolf and uses his imagination to travel to a wild forest where he meets creatures called Wild Things.