Maurice Sendak

First edition of the subversive Caldecott-award winner, in the rare original first-issue dust jacket.

• Maurice Sendak (American).
• [New York]: Harper & Row, 1963.
• [40] pages.
• Bound in original quarter grey cloth, color pictorial paper boards, and in original price-clipped color pictorial dust jacket without Caldecott medal, and with three-paragraph blurb on front flap (blurbs are issue point, not price; ref. Hanrahan), color pictorial endpapers.

"[I]t is through fantasy that children achieve catharsis. It is the best means they have for taming Wild Things." —Sendak, Caldecott acceptance speech.

After illustrating nearly 50 other books, WILD THINGS was Sendak's first full-color picture book with his own text and illustrations. He took full advantage of that control to push the boundaries of the children's picture book genre. The story of a boy who gets in a fight with his mother and lets out his pent-up feelings in a fantastical Wild Rumpus, WILD THINGS focused on the complex inner experience of little Max, acknowledging the reality that children deal with anger, frustration, and fear just as adults do. For this reason, the book was initially not well received: before the rise of New Realism in children's literature, many critics felt children's books ought to model ideal behavior rather than accurately reflect children's emotional experiences. The book made a splash from the very beginning, as Sendak expected it would: many critics advised against buying the book, and some libraries banned it. Readers largely didn't know how to react to its unconventional approach—until it won the Caldecott. WILD THINGS is now one of the best-selling children's books of all time, paving the way for commercial picture books that explore our darker sides and encourage us to make friends with monsters. Hanrahan, Works of Maurice Sendak: 1947-1994, A58.