'Wild Things' in our midst

As a tyke, according to my parents, I was what one could call as a wild thing. They like to tell the story of the time I almost strangled the minister in the middle of children’s story time…. Yes it sounds bad, but in my defense, I was just giving her a tight hug from behind. It wasn’t until the young age of six that I had my first encounter with a wild thing like myself. It went a little something like this:

“That very night in Max’s room a forest grew and grew…And when he came to the place where the wild things are they roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws till Max said be still and tamed them with a magic trick.”

Not surprisingly, this became one of my favorite books along with the Big Hungry Bear and the classic Green Eggs and Ham. Not only did the plot of the story draw my attention, the pictures of the many wild things fascinated me. There were talons, scales, feathers, beaks, snouts, and horns galore. All portrayed in bright colors; sure to catch any curious 6-year-old’s eye.

The artist and author, Maurice Sendak, uses pen and ink for most of his illustrations along with other mixed media to show color. Extensive crosshatching can be seen in all of his drawings, used to convey shadows. In the story, as Max’s room transforms into a jungle, the amount of pen and ink decreases and a less stark media takes over. The background scenes in the jungle are all fairly muted and have a somewhat blurry feeling, which I assume is an allusion to Max’s dream. Yet, like Max, all the wild things are portrayed using pen and ink. Just as I did, the viewer easily overlooks this artistic transition at first glance. But as I continued to scan the book I noticed much more detail than I ever had before. In my young wild state, I didn’t fully appreciate the talent of Sendak, but now as a somewhat tamer individual I see what a great artist he is.