Where the wild things live

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
novel
title Where the wild things live
Original title Where the Wild Things Are
country United States
author Maurice Sendak
illustrator Maurice Sendak
publishing company Harper & Row
First publication April 9, 1963

Where the Wild Things Are ( English title: Where the Wild Things Are ) is a first time in 1963 by Harper & Row published children's and picture book of American author and illustrator Maurice Sendak . In 1967 the first German translation by Claudia Schmölders was published by Diogenes Verlag . The book has been adapted several times, including as an animated short film (1974, updated version 1988), opera (1980) and as a feature film by Spike Jonze (2009). Where the Wild Things Are has been sold over 19 million copies worldwide, 10 million of them in the United States.

Sendak received the Caldecott Medal for best children's book in 1964 for the book . In 2012 it was voted the best picture book of all time by readers of the School Library Journal .

action

The text of the book is only 333 words in the German version (338 words in English).

The story is about a boy named Max. After he puts on a wolf costume, he rages around the house so wild that his mother sends him to bed without dinner. Max's bedroom is then mysteriously transformed into a jungle environment. Max arrives in a small sailing boat on an island that is inhabited by large monsters, the "wild guys". After he succeeds in intimidating the creatures, Max is crowned King of the Wild Things and he enjoys romping with his subjects. Still, he begins to feel lonely, so he decides to return home, to the dismay of the wild things. On his return, Max discovers that his dinner is still warm next to him.

Emergence

Maurice Sendak began his career as an illustrator and in the mid-1950s decided not only to illustrate texts by other authors, but also to write and illustrate texts himself. In 1956 he published his first book as an author and illustrator, Kenny's Window ( Kenny's Window ). Shortly thereafter, he began working on his second book. The story should be about a child who is sent to his room for a tantrum and decides to flee to the place, which was to give the book the name, in the land of wild horses ( Land of Wild Horses ). Just before he started doing the illustrations, Sendak realized that he didn't know how to draw horses correctly. Therefore, on the advice of his editor, he changed his basic idea, and the “wild horses” became “wild guys”. The term is inspired by the Yiddish expression “vilde chaya” (װילדע חיה) for boisterous and wild children.

Sendak used the caricatures he had drawn in his youth as an escape from the chaotic weekly visits of his aunts and uncles to relatives. As a child, Sendak saw his relatives, who pinched his cheek until they turned red, as “completely crazy” and with “crazy faces, wild eyes and big, yellow teeth”. These family members, like Sendak's parents, were poor Jewish refugees from Poland whose other relatives in Europe were killed during the Holocaust .

While Oliver Knussen was working on the opera adaptation in 1983, Sendak gave the monsters the names of his family members: Tzippy, Moishe, Aaron, Emile and Bernard.

reception

Barack Obama reads the book to children as they slide Easter eggs at the White House , 2009

According to Sendak, the book was banned in some libraries and received negative reviews. In 1970, Der Spiegel found it “too horrific”. It took about two years for librarians and teachers to realize just how attracted children were to the book, keep checking out it, and critics easing their reservations. Since then, the book has received mostly positive reviews. British writer Francis Spufford suggested that Where the Wild Things Are is "one of the few picture books that deliberately and magnificently makes use of the psychoanalytic story of anger ." Mary Pols of Time magazine wrote that the reason Sendaks was so appealing Book that is down to earth. Max has a tantrum and discovers his wild side, but in the end he is brought back for a warm dinner due to his belief in parental love and thus balances on the seesaw between fear and security. The New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis noted that there are different readings of the book through a " Freudian or colonialist view and probably many other ways to ruin this delicate story of a lonely child who is liberated by his imagination ."

Sendak called the boy Max "my bravest and therefore my dearest creation" and also appreciated the "wild guys", "who are not designed to please everyone - only children." In Selma G. Lanes' book The Art of Maurice Sendak counts Sendak Where the Wild Things Are to a kind of trilogy with his books In the Night Kitchen ( In the Night Kitchen ) and As Papa was gone ( Outside Over There ), which deals with child development, survival, change and anger. For him, the three books are "all variations on the same motif: how children deal with different feelings - danger, boredom, fear, frustration, jealousy - and how they manage to cope with the reality of their lives."

Based on an online poll in 2007, the US National Education Association named the book to the list of Teachers' Top 100 Books for Children . Five years later, the School Library Journal named Where the Wild Things Are the best picture book for children after a reader poll . Elizabeth Bird, the New York Public Library's librarian who conducted the survey, observed that the book was a turning point and ushered in the modern era of picture books. Another participant praised the book as "perfectly written and perfectly illustrated [...] simply the epitome of a picture book," noting that Sendak "stands out above the rest, in part because he's subversive." Former US President Barack Obama read the book for several years to children at the White House pushing Easter eggs .

The picture book became extremely popular in the English- speaking world and in 1964 won the Caldecott Medal , the highest award for English-language picture books. Despite the book's popularity, Sendak refused to write a sequel. In 2012, four months before his death, he told satirist Stephen Colbert that this was "the most boring idea imaginable."

Adaptations

After five years of production, Gene Deitch released an animated short film of the book in 1973 , which was produced by Krátký Film in Prague for Weston Woods Studios. There were published two versions: the original version of 1973, with the spokesman Allen Swift and a concrète Musique - soundtrack of Deitch itself and an updated version from 1988 with new music and the Speaker Peter Schickele .

In the 1980s Sendak worked with British composer Oliver Knussen on a children's opera adaptation of the book. The first (incomplete) performance was in Brussels in 1980 , while the first full performance by Glyndebourne Touring Opera in London took place four years later. 1985 saw the first US performance in Saint Paul (Minnesota) and in 1987 in New York City by the New York City Opera . A performance ran during the Proms 2002 at London's Royal Albert Hall . A concert was shown at the New York City Opera in spring 2011.

The Walt Disney Studio ran a series of Computer Generated Imagery tests in 1983 made by Glen Keane and John Lasseter based on the wild things .

On October 16, 2009 an adaptation was released as a real-life film by Spike Jonze under the title Where the wild guys live . The main role was taken on by Max Records . Max's mother is played by Catherine Keener . The actors Lauren Ambrose , Chris Cooper , Paul Dano , James Gandolfini , Catherine O'Hara and Forest Whitaker also gave their voices to the wild guys. The script was written by Jonze and writer Dave Eggers . The score is by Karen O and Carter Burwell . Sendak acted as a producer . Developed from the screenplay Eggers's novel The Wild Things ( The Wild Things ), which appeared in the same year.

In 2012, the British indie rock band alt-J released the single Breezeblocks , which was partly inspired by Sendak's book. The band's keyboardist Gus Unger-Hamilton said in an interview that the song shares ideas similar to the book, such as breaking up with a loved one. Breezeblocks reached number six in the UK independent charts , number nine on the Billboard Alternative Songs chart, and gold status on the Australian charts .

Another song inspired by the book is Alessia Cara's single Wild Things from 2016. It reached number 50 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 76 on the German single charts . In an interview with ABC News Radio , Cara said that every wild guy represents an emotion and she wanted to adapt that in the song.

Expenses (selection)

Audio books

Web links

Commons : Where the Wild Things Are  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Kenneth Turan: 'Where the Wild Things Are'. The adaptation of Maurice Sendak's book expands on the boorish Max - to its detriment. In: Los Angeles Times . tronc, Inc., October 16, 2009, accessed March 8, 2017 .
  2. ^ Caldecott Medal & Honor Books, 1938-Present. 1964 Medal Winner. In: ala.org. American Library Association , accessed March 8, 2017 .
  3. ↑ a b SLJ's Top 100 Picture Books. (PDF; 3.2 MB) (No longer available online.) In: School Library Journal . Media Source, 2012, archived from the original on November 23, 2016 ; accessed on March 8, 2017 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.slj.com
  4. ↑ a b c Pamela Warrick: Facing the Frightful Things: Books: These days, Maurice Sendak's wild creatures are homelessness, AIDS and violence - big issues for small kids. In: Los Angeles Times . tronc, Inc., October 11, 1993, accessed March 10, 2017 .
  5. ^ Christopher Shea: The Jewish lineage of "Where the Wild Things Are". In: Boston.com. Boston Globe Media Partners, LLC , October 16, 2009, accessed March 10, 2017 .
  6. ↑ Wild Things: The Art of Maurice Sendak. In: tfaoi.com. Traditional Fine Arts Organization, April 26, 2005, accessed March 13, 2017 .
  7. ↑ a b Emma Brockes : Maurice Sendak: 'I refuse to lie to children'. In: The Guardian . Guardian News & Media Ltd., October 2, 2011, accessed March 13, 2017 .
  8. ↑ a b Maurice Sendak . In: Tom Burns (Ed.): Children's Literature Review . tape 131 . Gale, Farmington Hills 2008, ISBN 978-0-7876-9606-1 , pp. 70 (English, limited preview in Google Book Search).
  9. ↑ Eerie features . In: Der Spiegel . No. 16 , 1970, pp. 222 ( Online - Apr. 13, 1970 ).
  10. ^ Robert Capps: Review: Where the Wild Things Are Is Woolly, But Not Wild Enough. In: Wired . Condé Nast Verlag , October 16, 2009, accessed on March 14, 2017 (English).
  11. ^ Francis Spufford: The Child That Books Built: A Life of Reading . Henry Holt and Company, New York 2002, ISBN 0-8050-7215-2 , pp. 60 (English).
  12. ^ Mary Pols: Where the Wild Things Are: Sendak with Sensitivity. In: Time . Time Inc. , October 14, 2009, accessed March 14, 2017 (English, Paywall ).
  13. ↑ Manohla Dargis: Where the Wild Things Are: Sendak with Sensitivity. In: The New York Times . The New York Times Company, October 15, 2009, accessed March 14, 2017 .
  14. ↑ Peter Dittmar: Because Max had to go to bed on an empty stomach. In: The world . Axel Springer SE , June 10, 2008, accessed on March 14, 2017 (English).
  15. ↑ a b Christopher Lehmann-Haupt: Books Of The Times. In: The New York Times . The New York Times Company, June 1, 1981, accessed March 14, 2017 .
  16. ↑ Richard M. Gottlieb: Maurice Sendak's Trilogy: Disappointment, Fury, and Their Transformation through Art . In: Psychoanalytic Study of the Child . tape 63 . Yale University Press , New Haven, London 2008, ISBN 978-0-300-14099-6 , pp. 186-217 , PMID 19449794 (English).
  17. ↑ Christopher Lehmann-Haupt: Teachers' Top 100 Books for Children. In: nea.org. National Education Association, 2007, accessed March 14, 2017 .
  18. ↑ Elizabeth Bird: Top 100 Picture Books # 1: Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak. In: School Library Journal . Media Source, July 2, 2012, accessed March 14, 2017 .
  19. ↑ Erin Carlson: Maurice Sendak Calls Newt Gingrich to 'Idiot' in 'Colbert Report' Interview (Video). In: The Hollywood Reporter . Prometheus Global Media , January 25, 2012, accessed on March 14, 2017 . }
  20. ^ Johnston Russell: Nashville Scene - 'Bach in Black' . In: The Tennessean . Gannett, Nashville March 12, 2009, pp. 46 (English).
  21. ↑ Emma Bowden: 10 wild facts about Maurice Sendak's Where The Wild Things Are. In: The Guardian . Guardian News and Media Limited, March 29, 2016, accessed March 14, 2017 .
  22. ^ Daniel J. Wakin: For New York City Opera Season, Bernstein, Strauss and New Works. In: The New York Times . The New York Times Company, March 9, 2010, accessed March 14, 2017 .
  23. ↑ Amid Amidi: Early CG Experiments by John Lasseter and Glen Keane. In: Cartoon Brew. Cartoon Brew, LLC, February 23, 2011, accessed March 14, 2017 .
  24. ↑ Azaria Podplesky: alt-J Taps Maurice Sendak and a Kate Middleton Look-Alike For "Breezeblocks" Video. (No longer available online.) In: Seattle Weekly. Sound Publishing Inc. , December 18, 2012, archived from the original on July 8, 2017 ; accessed on March 28, 2017 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / archive.seattleweekly.com
  25. ↑ ARIA Charts - Accreditations - 2013 Singles. In: aria.com.au. Australian Recording Industry Association , December 31, 2013, accessed March 28, 2017 .
  26. ↑ Alessia Cara on "Wild Things": "It's Just Really an Empowering Song". In: abcnewsradioonline.com. ABC News Radio , April 26, 2016, accessed March 28, 2017 .