Where the Wild Things Are

"Certainly we want to protect our children from new and painful experiences that are beyond their emotional comprehension and that intensify anxiety; and to a point we can prevent premature exposure to such experiences. That is obvious. But what is just as obvious—and what is too often overlooked—is the fact that from their earliest years children live on familiar terms with disrupting emotions, that fear and anxiety are an intrinsic part of their everyday lives, that they continually cope with frustration as best they can. And it is through fantasy that children achieve catharsis. It is the best means they have for taming Wild Things."
– Maurice Sendak, his acceptance speech for the 1964 Caldecott Medal

Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are has had a profound impact on the cultural imagination of America and the world over. Created in the early 60s, his Wild Things, each unique in their composition, elicit many elusive and ambiguous aspects of human experience, and those of childhood specifically through Sendak's protagonist Max: despair, curiosity, fear and, ultimately, unconditional love. While remaining steeped in centuries of art-historical contexts and traditions, Sendak created something new and engaging for both children and the adults who read to them. The vivid world that Sendak built through his series of illustrations is poignantly combined with an original story that does not try to lecture or direct its audience. Rather, Where the Wild Things Are has inspired generations of readers to set out and explore the wonderous worlds before them with open minds and a philosophy for coping with what they may find there.

Oblong octavo (254 × 227mm). Dust-jacket in first state without the Caldecott Medal sticker and with three-paragraph text blocks on upper and lower flaps and minor registration issues (price-clipped, rubbed along edges, occasional small tears, few stains with one on the back affecting a small portion of the image, spine slightly darkened). Title-page reads "Library of Congress no. 63-21253", some images with slight registration issues (edges very slightly frayed). Publisher’s green cloth spine with pictorial paper boards (corners lightly rubbed, a few small marks on covers); housed in an archival folder and paper box, with mylar over dust-jacket.