The Wild Things [Hardcover]

Dave Eggers (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 13, 2009

The Wild Things — based very loosely on the storybook by Maurice Sendak and the screenplay cowritten with Spike Jonze — is about the confusions of a boy, Max, making his way in a world he can’t control. His father is gone, his mother is spending time with a younger boyfriend, his sister is becoming a teenager and no longer has interest in him. At the same time, Max finds himself capable of startling acts of wildness: he wears a wolf suit, bites his mom, and can’t always control his outbursts. During a fight at home, Max flees and runs away into the woods. He finds a boat there, jumps in, and ends up on the open sea, destination unknown. He lands on the island of the Wild Things, and soon he becomes their king. But things get complicated when Max realizes that the Wild Things want as much from him as he wants from them. Funny, dark, and alive, The Wild Things is a timeless and time-tested tale for all ages.

Editorial Reviews

From Bookmarks Magazine

Maurice Sendak's spare picture book has captured the hearts of readers for more than four decades. Critics were split, however, on whether Eggers's novel will enjoy the same long-lasting popularity. Its greatest appeal may stem from Eggers's ability to convey both the sense of wonder and the dark uncertainty that make up a typical childhood, though a few reviewers disagreed. The Times, for example, called Max's outbursts an appalling symbol of "contemporary brattish America." The Washington Post simply wished that authors would develop their own material (critics mentioned Pride and Prejudice and Zombies as a horrific literary crime, not for the first time). Overall, younger readers may find much to enjoy here, but children and adults alike should start with the original.

From Booklist

In Eggers’ novel, adapted from Spike Jonze’s film of Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are, Max is a robust, self-reliant boy who acts out in response to his parents’ divorce. After some particularly epic mischief, he runs away, finds a boat, and sails it to a land where large, destructive beasts are willing to recognize him as their king—but Max, as it turns out, is not a particularly good king. There are many pleasant surprises here, from the personalities of the wild things to the dreamlike particulars of their world. But it doesn’t feel like an organically grown story. Whether because of this book’s unique origins, or Eggers’ execution, or even the familiarity of the picture book, the drama here, unfortunately, comes less from Max’s adventures than from our interest in seeing how Eggers has managed the adaptation. Where Sendak’s book contains multitudes in a dozen sentences, Eggers uses nearly 300 pages to tease out a number of ideas, and his book still feels too long. Billed as an “all-ages novel,” The Wild Things feels too grown-up for most children and too childlike for most grown-ups. Its association with the movie may boost sales, but the book seems unlikely to last long in the popular imagination. --Keir Graff

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 300 pages
• Publisher: McSweeney's (October 13, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1934781614
• ISBN-13: 978-1934781616
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #454,469 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Dave Eggers is the author of six previous books, including "Zeitoun," a nonfiction account a Syrian-American immigrant and his extraordinary experience during Hurricane Katrina and "What Is the What," a finalist for the 2006 National Book Critics Circle Award. That book, about Valentino Achak Deng, a survivor of the civil war in southern Sudan, gave birth to the Valentino Achak Deng Foundation, run by Mr. Deng and dedicated to building secondary schools in southern Sudan. Eggers is the founder and editor of McSweeney's, an independent publishing house based in San Francisco that produces a quarterly journal, a monthly magazine ("The Believer"), and "Wholphin," a quarterly DVD of short films and documentaries. In 2002, with Nínive Calegari he co-founded 826 Valencia, a nonprofit writing and tutoring center for youth in the Mission District of San Francisco. Local communities have since opened sister 826 centers in Chicago, Los Angeles, Brooklyn, Ann Arbor, Seattle, and Boston. In 2004, Eggers taught at the University of California-Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, and there, with Dr. Lola Vollen, he co-founded Voice of Witness, a series of books using oral history to illuminate human rights crises around the world. A native of Chicago, Eggers graduated from the University of Illinois with a degree in journalism. He now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and two children.