Let the wild rumpus start

   For over three decades kids have envied the boy in the wolf costume. Since the first time Maurice Sendak’s fictional Max threatened to eat his mother up, generations of wide-eyed children have been enchanted with Max’s make believe island of monsters, terrible from their teeth to their claws.
   First published in 1963, Where The Wild Things Are was intended to center around horses, until Sendak realized how much easier it would be to draw arbitrary wild things. The nine-sentence picture book has inspired a short animated film, a stage play, ultra-marketable plush toys and T-shirts and, now, a full-length film featuring actors in 12–foot monster costumes.
   Cowriters Dave Eggers and Spike Jonze have interpreted this classic, with a full blessing from Sendak, as a film about more than just a boy who misbehaves. Rather than running amok and chasing the dog with a fork, Max is a real boy with a moody older sister and divorced parents. In the film, he’s angry and resentful, prompting him to bite his mother and then run away.
    Instead of a forest growing in his room, he finds a boat and sails to the land of the wild things where he ultimately becomes their king.
   Warner Brothers entices us with an ad campaign full of sun-soaked forests, foggy beaches and nighttime bonfire scenes.
   Book buffs, elementary school librarians and anyone who ever dreamed of sailing away to a mythical land of grotesque fun-loving beasts have been on edge about Where The Wild Things Are. We worry about whether or not Jonze’s version will live up to the magical versions we’ve made up in our own young minds.
   Like most book to movie adaptations, it probably won’t, but it promises to be not only a sight to behold, but an adventure to a land where we are loved by monsters who mean us no harm.