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A trailer (see below) for the upcoming film of Where the Wild Things Are is out on the Web, and while I know the world has bigger problems, watching it infuriated me. I don't want a real-life Max, who goes to school and has a backstory! I especially don't want to see his face while he peers at his parents kissing in their bedroom! Nor am I moved by the 2009 special-effects version of Maurice Sendak's 1963 monster illustrations. Why did Hollywood have to come for this short poem of a children's book, which I'II bet many of us know by heart?
The magic of children's literature is the magic of imagination, of making up the visual renderings and actions of the characters for yourself. I know that some books are filmmaking candy, and to the inevitable screen version of Harry Potter I am resigned. I'll even concede that once in a while the movie or TV version of a kids' book augments the original, though for me these exceptions are usually cartoons, like The Hobbit. (And no I am not pleased that there seems to be a real-life version of that one in the works.) But do the imagination thieves in Hollywood really have to rob me of Max? All I want from him are the few words Sendak gives him. No more.