Just ask any librarian—or better, ask any child: Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are is one of the great picture books. In this 1963 classic, young Max, in a wolf-onesie and a mischievous mood, is banished to his room for misbehaving. There he imaginatively spirits himself away to where the wild things are. For all its simplicity, the text is quite psychologically trenchant. Max’s transfiguration of frustrated energy into creative fictions could even be read as a gloss of Sigmund Freud’s “Creative Writers and Day-Dreaming.”
In belated celebration of the book’s 50th birthday the Milwaukee Public Library has assembled a retrospective of Sendak’s original art for display at MPL’s central branch. “Maurice Sendak: The Memorial Exhibition” opens Saturday, July 11 with festivities including a meet and greet with a Wild Thing. Other branches will be holding story time, movie marathons and sleepovers throughout July and into August. Details can be found on the MPL’s website.
