ABSTRACT
In recent weeks I have been spending time with a group of 7 and 8-year-old pupils, reading with them Maurice Sendak’s well-known picture book Where The Wild Things Are (1980). Max, the child hero, is rude to his mother, calling her a ‘wild thing’ and is sent to his room without his supper. Soon, a forest begins to grow in the room and Max sails to a far away land inhabited by strange monsters, the Wild Things. Although only small, Max tames them by staring into their eyes without blinking once and becomes their king, presiding over a celebratory wild rumpus. Eventually he decides that he wants to be where someone ‘loved him best of all’ and, returning home, finds supper waiting for him in his bedroom ‘and it was still hot’.
