BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?

Subject: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Dec 09 - 09:23 AM

All the papers are writing about Maurice Sendak's picture·book·prizewinner·1964 book 'Where The Wild Things Are' because there is some controversy about whether Spike Jonze should have expanded its original 10 or so sentences into a full-length narrative movie with 'adult' things going on all around the child protagonist which aren't in the book.

What I want to ask, though, is: Why is the book so highly-rated anyhow? What is inventive or clever or the least bit interesting about it in any way whatever? The pictures, indifferently drawn to my eye, are all of a uniform browny-green-yellowy boring palette, of not very scary fantasy-creatures with claws & teeth & occasional beaks. They don't look very wild to me. & they aren't as it turns out — all the boring child has to do to tame them is look at them, so they make him king, and then they all swing from the trees — a 'wild rumpus', it's called. Then he goes home again.

And that's it. Someone out there must love it and respect it. Can someone who does please explain why? Seems to me to pale into insignificance next to, say, the approximately 5 years older 'Tom's Midnight Garden' by Philippa Pearce, a subtle and inventive time-warp fantasy, from which it seems at least to some extent to derive. I can't see why 'Wild Things' has become one of those books that children are supposed to love, with the encouragement of parents who loved it when they were children. Can someone enlighten me, please?

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: CarolC
Date: 13 Dec 09 - 09:43 AM

It's a very cool book, and kids love it. It speaks to things that lie just below the surface of most people, especially kids, and it does this with few words, which makes it elegant. I read it for the first time when I was in my late teens, so I did not grow up with it. Every child I have read it to has loved it without any encouragement from me. I have always liked the pictures, myself.

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: CarolC
Date: 13 Dec 09 - 09:45 AM

Also... after Max gets back home to his room, his dinner is waiting, and it's still warm.

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Dec 09 - 09:52 AM

It is his SUPPER and it is actually 'still hot' —

which is better becoz it rhymes with "so what?

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: Charley Noble
Date: 13 Dec 09 - 10:01 AM

The book may be highly rated because it was a departure (especially so in the early 1960's) from many other children's books with innocuous contents. The theme seems to me more scary in terms of a child being sent to bed early as punishment, and then dreaming his way to an island inhabited with scary-looking beasties. Granted the beasties are not as scary as they first appear, and respond positively to the intruder but I think that is positive overall as a lesson in life (except when you do encounter a real carnivorous beast). But scary appearances do not necessarily mean scary behavior.

I think the artwork is quite good, especially when compared to Disney style art, but that is a matter of opinion.

I am puzzled that such an alternative children's book became so successful. There are many brilliant books available and just a few manage to attract this level of attention, and most of the successful ones have a more predictable formula.

I haven't seen the movie, but I doubt that I'd be favorably impressed with the translation of the book to the big screen.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: CarolC
Date: 13 Dec 09 - 10:20 AM

It's been decades since I read it, so my memory of the exact words is not perfect. I think I did pretty good, considering.

It's visceral, MtheGM. If you don't like it, don't read it. Others do like it... so what?

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: CarolC
Date: 13 Dec 09 - 10:27 AM

Ok, I'll analyze the content...

Max loses control and allows his wild side to take control (kids do this a lot), he enjoys it (kids also do this, as do some adults). He takes control of his wild side, which makes him feel powerful, and he enjoys that as well. When he is finished with all of that, he is redeemed and still loved, which he finds reassuring after having the experience of everything getting out of control.

It's very psychological, and it speaks directly to things that are under the surface. It is very effective for this reason, and children find it satisfying and reassuring.

I first read this book while taking a child development class, and it was very highly recommended by my teacher.

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Dec 09 - 11:01 AM

==MtheGM. If you don't like it, don't read it.=====


Carol - if I hadn't read it once [just before I posted, for the 1st time, on purpose to see what all the talk was about, which left me as you will gather, perplexed — hence this thread] then I wouldn't have known I didn't like it, would I? As I clearly found that I don't, obviously I shan't read it again; so your remark was otiose, & perhaps a trifle over-aggressive, if you don't mind my saying so (or even if you do).

Mind you, I do thank you for your analysis in your last post: I found it a reasonably convincing exposition of why some people admire it; tho must repeat it doesn't work for me - I find it wilfully, whimsically, almost cock-snookingly (or should that be snook-cockingly?) slight: inadequate in what Eliot called the "objective correlative".

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: CarolC
Date: 13 Dec 09 - 03:04 PM

Different strokes for different folks, MtheGM. I happened to find this comment from you, "which is better becoz it rhymes with "so what? ", otios and rather passive-aggressive, myself.

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: CarolC
Date: 13 Dec 09 - 03:04 PM

Correction - otiose

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: Lox
Date: 13 Dec 09 - 03:24 PM

Without going into the deeper psychological explanations, I think it is a beautifully crafted book that speaks very clearly and suggestively to the imagination and i see it as speaking more so to the imaginations of children.

I thnk one of its biggest strengths is that much of its imagery is about creative seeds which the reader is at liberty to expand on in as much or as little depth as they chooose depnding on how much it inspires them.

A child would go to sleep at night with dreams of faraway fantasies in their minds and monsters who needn't be scary.

I love it. I love its non restrictive nature and the onus it places on the readers imagination.

To really get it you have to see the look on a kids face when they are having it read to them.

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: Mrs.Duck
Date: 13 Dec 09 - 05:01 PM

I loved this book from the first reading. I have used it in school with countless children and haven't found one who wasn't entranced by it. I haven't seen the film but hope they don't spoil it for me. Hopefully we will get to see it next Wednesday.

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: Lox
Date: 13 Dec 09 - 05:26 PM

I haven't seen the film yet, but the trailers are very promising and the cinematography seems to have captured the essence of it well.

I await the verdict of catters with anticipation.

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Dec 09 - 07:37 PM

"the artwork is quite good"

I'd say "not at all bad" - which in my corner of the world means "brilliant"...Probably a good idea to read it with a young child, MtheGM. They tend to be better at this stuff than most adults.

No accounting for tastes. I suppose you could class The Wild Things with Marmite, in that respect. The book, I mean - I haven't seen the film, and wouldn't really expect it to quite measure up.

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Dec 09 - 09:15 PM

What do these children find in it? This is not asked truculently, but in genuine curiosity. I know it was long ago, but I have a vivid recollection of my own childhood, & of my literary tastes at the time. I liked plenty of story, incident, things happening — all of which just don't seem to be present here. The whole thing seems so uneventful as to be practically rarefied away (a 'wild rumpus' — they swing from the trees - wowzer!). And of course the intelligent child will get the point of the 3-word final sentence — that none of it had happened really anyway, it was all in his mind.

What is the appeal, please? ··· to you who are responding so enthusiastically with regard to the book, & to the children you share it with who, you assure me, love it so. I repeat - I am not trying to be aggressive or to put anyone down. I am genuinely puzzled.

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: GUEST, heric
Date: 13 Dec 09 - 10:18 PM

There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — - shame on you. Fool me — You can't get fooled again.

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: Dan Schatz
Date: 13 Dec 09 - 10:25 PM

The book has a wonderful poetic sense to it - and kids pick up on that; at least mine does. Plus, it's a delight to read to a kid who's been acting up!

I love it!

Dan

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 13 Dec 09 - 11:05 PM

Spike Jonze was interviewed on NPR. He says he made the movie because the book made such a huge impression on him when he has a child. I read it as an adult either with or to my daugher. Don't remember our reactions.

De gustibus...

Russ (permanent GUEST)

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: CarolC
Date: 14 Dec 09 - 01:06 AM

MtheGM, at what age did you begin to prefer books that were as you described? I ask because you may be remembering a somewhat later age than the one that is appropriate for introducing Where the Wild Things Are to children. Most very young children experience the world differently than older kids. The book speaks very well to the way kids aged 3 to 6 or 7 experience the world. After that age, the experience this book offers might not have much of an effect.

On the other hand, it's possible that you were very cerebral from a very young age. The books that you describe sound very cerebral in nature. I mentioned before that this is a very visceral book. If you don't tend to respond to input that is visceral in nature, you probably won't have much of an experience of the book. Those who do get something out of the book probably just are more prone to having a response to input that is visceral in nature than you.

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 14 Dec 09 - 01:29 AM

I used to have a great time reading this book to my kids, who are now in their thirties.

There's a skit version of the stoy here (click) for those of you who haven't read the book.

The artwork is half the fun of the book, but the part we liked best was hamming it up when reading the part that went:

And when he came to the place where the Wild Things are, they Roared their Terrible Roars, and Gnashed their Terrible Teeth, and Rolled their Terrible Eyes, and Showed their Terrible Claws. Till Max said, "Be Still."

I suppose you could get psychological and say that it teaches kids to put their fears in perspective - and maybe it does. In the meantime, it's just a fun story, and we always laughed and goofed around when we read it.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 14 Dec 09 - 03:36 AM

I used to read this to school classes when they visited the library, I also 'hammed it up' (I prefer 'put character into it') at that passage... the youngest (first grade) kids loved it, and even the older ones (fourth grade) would ask for it regularly.

You have to remember that this book was written 45 years ago, when life was a little simpler and less garishly intrusive than it is now. The muted colours are a boon to the eye after some of the neon colours and glaring artwork that prevail these days, the story simple and honest - no hidden codes or surprise endings.

Reading it as an adult, with an adult mind, expecting the sort of shock and schlock things we have become used to, it does seem a pedestrian, outdated and dull book. Read it as a child, open to all experiences, innocent and uncorrupted, and it is as pointed out above, a moving tale of imagination, self appraisment, learning consequences and reassurance.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 14 Dec 09 - 03:54 AM

You are probably right, Liz. & Carol, thank you for all your valuable input [& sorry if I was a bit rude above - just a typical bit of Mudcattery & you gave back as good as you got anyhow!].

I suppose you are all right: it is a de·gustibus thing. From earliest age I can recall right up to present [I can't do Virginia Woolf or Beckett either] I have never been a minimalist, less·is·more, freak. In other media, for my part, you can have D Hurst & T Emin & J Pollock & any Turner prizewinner there has ever been.

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 14 Dec 09 - 04:05 AM

Thank you Charley for saying what I was thinking. I studied Children's Literature for my degree (many years ago) and if I remember correctly, "Where The Wild Things Are" broke barriers in children's literature of the time, and brought a return to the Victorian literary model of rebellious child, finding himself in a wonderland of potential danger that he gains control over. Think Peter Pan and Alice of Wonderland and Looking Glass fame. These heroes and heroines heralded a societal appreciation of childhood, a concept that previously was not all that wide spread.

WtWTA condensed the concept and put in reading level for the very young. Showed young readers also that no matter how misbehaved one is, Mother will always love you. Important in developing the sense of self.

My kids loved it and so did the children I taught. And yes, I acted it out and did voices. Max shows children how to face the monsters in their imaginations and to test their limits. It's all good stuff.

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Dec 09 - 05:16 AM

And when he came to the place where the Wild Things are, they Roared their Terrible Roars, and Gnashed their Terrible Teeth, and Rolled their Terrible Eyes, and Showed their Terrible Claws. Till Max said, "Be Still."

Very much like the Mudcat, really...

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 14 Dec 09 - 06:35 AM

See now I have this image of Speigel in a 'Onesie' with ears.... mental floss required!!!


Try reading some of Sendak's other works.. they're just as innocent and imaginative, with similar messages and feel-good moments.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 14 Dec 09 - 08:14 AM

Absolutely. Really Rosie was fab - and the TV adaptation with music by Carole King was superb.

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: Charley Noble
Date: 14 Dec 09 - 08:15 AM

Now let's discuss why I find The Giving Tree so appalling. No, let's not!

But "indulge" me for a few posts. ;~)

Some people really love this book for its message of total self-sacrifice.

But I've always had a nagging suspicion that it is not healthy to be so indulgent to a child, that there needs to be limits and parents, as well as other caregivers, have a responsibility to teach those as well.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 14 Dec 09 - 08:55 AM

My wife speaks of this with awe, but I have this very vague memory of looking at it as a child and being surprised that anyone could sell a storybook that had so little in it.

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: Greg F.
Date: 14 Dec 09 - 09:03 AM

"The Giving Tree" is ever so much worse than simply appalling and children should not be subjected to it in any way, shape or form. But as you say, Charlie, let's not get into it here.

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: CarolC
Date: 14 Dec 09 - 09:17 AM

MtheGM, I think I understand a bit better now the difference between your experience of things and my own, at least. I love Beckett. It sounds like you're only seeing the surface of the things written by people like Sendak and Beckett. For me, there are many layers of subtext, and that's what makes the works of authors like them so compelling.

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 14 Dec 09 - 11:03 AM

Carol - difference between us seems to be that I too love subtext, as long as there is some. as it were, TOP-text?, 'surface'-text? - I am sure you get what I mean - for it to be 'sub' to. Trouble, to me, is that both WtWTA & Beckett (& I would add Virginia Woolf, whom I also mentioned above} are all SUB-text with no surface-text, which to me is essential.

Do you see where I am coming from?

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: Lox
Date: 14 Dec 09 - 11:10 AM

"no surface-text"

But there is - it is simple and thought provoking.

If it were any busier on the surface, the depth (to be found in the readers mind I might add) would be obscured.

The enigma is the key.

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Dec 09 - 01:28 PM

I think Carol's onto something about you being a more cerebral type, MtheGM. I was a very cerebral kid, and I don't think I would have been much taken with WTWTA at all. It would have seemed totally lacking in substance to my very analytical mind which tends to look for and enjoy verbal complexity. I was always looking for information.

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: SINSULL
Date: 14 Dec 09 - 01:43 PM

My son and I loved the Giving Tree. He recognized that the boy/man was selfish but loved the idea that someone was always there for him.
Keep in mind, he had no one for years.
Probably most important, as a none reader, he could pretend to read "and the tree was happy" at every appropriate time.


But we both preferred The Twits. LOL

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 14 Dec 09 - 02:04 PM

Little Hawk - I agree; we seem to have been two of a cerebral kind indeed.

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: SINSULL
Date: 14 Dec 09 - 02:09 PM

So what children's books fascinated you at the age of 3 - 7?

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 14 Dec 09 - 02:09 PM

I haven't seen this book - but from what I recall of my own response to picture books or pop-up books when I was *little*, it's the wee details in the images and absence of fixed linear narrative which opens up a kind of 3D, impressionistic engagement with the story that is very potent to the young imagination.
Someone mentioned poetry above, and I think picture based stories, when well crafted, can evoke similar multiple levels of response & association, via subtle tricks of ambiguity and suggestion, as poetry can.

I don't have that kind of response now (though looking at paintings which beg questions or contain seeming illogicalities, or even imply taboos, can sometimes get close) - but I can recall the sheer *magic* of looking at picture based 'stories' filled with little evocative details, quite strongly.
I think young children have a very different way of perceiving the world than older children or adults, rather like a condition of full immersion in sensory experience - before more objective analytical ways of thinking become prominent.
If I think back, it's the way I recall it anyway.

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 14 Dec 09 - 02:40 PM

Sinsull — A selection of my read-to-by mother/read-4-self between the ages you mention: Classic fairy stories; tho my mother learned very early to be a bit careful because I cried for an hour when Sleeping Beauty pricked her finger on the spindle and DIED; so she couldn't even get to what I later discovered was the next sentence, 'but she didn't die; she went to sleep for 100 years'.

Alice; Milne - more 'Very Young' & 'Now 6' than the storybooks, though them too: esp 'Sir Brian Botany' & [in particular] 'The Knight Whose Armour Didn't Squeak' — & I could see all the allusive innuendos to Sir Thomas Thom's avoidance of conflict too, & precisely what was meant when "Sir Brian went on a journey and he caught a lot of duckweed' [INCIDENT, you see; with some subtlety added in] — & also that both these were intended as jokes about the 'Stories of King Arthur' which another favourite at that time; along, in same series of retellings for children, a book of Classical myths called, I think, "Tell Me A Story" or some such [they had green covers I remember; & I think illustrations by Rackham]. Something I discovered from this last one btw - my 7yrs-older sister mentioned Echo & Narcissus to my mother; 'How do you know that story?' I asked - I had just had it read to me from MY book. 'Everyone knows that story,' mother replies: 1st time, I recall, that I ever appreciated there was this corpus of stories that 'everyone knows'...

   The American pig Freddie [ever come across him?] - Freddie The Detective a particular favourite; my first detective story, leading me on in later life to Doyle, & to Sayers, on whom 60 years later I was to write the entries in The Cambridge Guide To Literature In English & The Continuum Encyclopedia Of British Literature.

I should, I am sure, have been, not so much bored as puzzled by WtWTA — 'but what's it supposed to be about' I should doubtless have asked pathetically - as, you will gather, I still do.

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: CarolC
Date: 14 Dec 09 - 02:46 PM

Carol - difference between us seems to be that I too love subtext, as long as there is some. as it were, TOP-text?, 'surface'-text? - I am sure you get what I mean - for it to be 'sub' to. Trouble, to me, is that both WtWTA & Beckett (& I would add Virginia Woolf, whom I also mentioned above} are all SUB-text with no surface-text, which to me is essential.

I understand what you're trying to say, but obviously there is enough surface text for some people, so obviously it is a matter of individual perception. You seem to need more surface text than some other people in order to discern the subtext. For me, both Beckett and Sendak employ just the right amount of both surface text and subtext.

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Dec 09 - 02:47 PM

I'd say that the children's books I liked best were "The Wind In The Willows" and the Winnie-the-Pooh books by A.A. Milne. I also liked adventure stuff like Robin Hood and Tarzan and anything else along that line. I started reading very early, and I would read pretty well anything I could get hold of from comic books to Sherlock Holmes stories and everything in between. I'd have had little interest in WTWTA, though I'd have given the artwork a brief look for sure.

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 14 Dec 09 - 02:53 PM

Thanks LH — I forgot Wind In Willows - also Pinocchio. & Robin Hood.

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: SINSULL
Date: 14 Dec 09 - 03:03 PM

I don't remember anyone reading to me as a child. My first book that I dearly loved was a collection of children's poetry and fairy tales. Winken, Blinken and Nod was my favorite mostly for the beautiful illustration. I wish I had that book today. Grimm's Fairy Tales was next. And a collection of Greek Mythology secreted from a friend's house . When her mother found me with it, she allowed me to borrow the entire collection.
I taught myself to read before I started school at age 4.5. And was found to be legally blind at 5. This caused an ongoing battle over my reading - I strained my eyes reading everything from bottle labels to mail inserts. Still where coke bottle glasses but plastic makes them bearable.
I too loved the story of Echo and Narcissus - that one made me cry. But my favorite was Pandora's box. Prometheus (forethought) and Epimetheus (afterthought) ( taught myself Latin as well) and Hope left in the box. To this day I wonder if Hope is the greatest evil of all.
Sorry for the thread drift.
Back to topic. I have never read WTWTA but loved the illustrations when the book came out. Maybe it is time I read it.

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: SINSULL
Date: 14 Dec 09 - 03:06 PM

This may be the place to ask this again:
One of the books had a fairy tale about a wicked witch in seven league boots chasing two girls - Rose Red and Rose White. The girls hide by turning themselves into roses. But the witch sees that there is a white rose on the red rose bush. She plucks it and Rose White dies. She may come back to life later I don't remember.
Ring a bell with anyone?

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Dec 09 - 03:33 PM

Your reading history sounds very similar to mine, SINSULL. I also became quite nearsighted. It may have been the reading, but I don't think so. I think it was nervous strain, because I had no trouble with my eyesight until I'd been in school a few years, and I'd been reading a lot before I ever went to school. School was a place where I experienced a great deal of nervous strain.

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 14 Dec 09 - 03:48 PM

I on other hand have always been blessed in my eyesight. At 77 can still drive short distances without glasses, tho put them on for longer journeys or get strain [it's ok - I can do the 20 yd numberplate test]; & only wear my reading glasses for longer reads - as optician said to me a while back, 'You don't need them for a menu, but you'd better put them on for a whole book.' Didn't wear any till well into 40s. So it can't just be down to reading. Nor hereditary — both my parents lifelong spectacle-wearers.

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: Amergin
Date: 14 Dec 09 - 03:54 PM

It's a book that holds magic for many young minds...and as usual some one comes along and tries to diminish it....

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 14 Dec 09 - 04:52 PM

I learned to read before going to school, as I'm sure many of us did. I'd read Lord of the Rings & Hitchhikers Guide by twelve. But however early one learns to read, there is very early childhood for all of us where one can't read. Before I could read there were picture books, and they were magical!

My favourite stories were classics by folk like E. Nesbit, Rudyard Kipling, C. S. Lewis & Lewis Caroll. The language of early children's literature feels quite distinctive compared to modern writing. I can still read and enjoy children's literature now, I'm currently reading the last Harry Potter. But J.K. Rowling's prose doesn't touch me in quite the same way that the style of earlier children's literature does.

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: SINSULL
Date: 14 Dec 09 - 04:59 PM

Sad but I don't remember picture books pre-reading. My earliest fairy tale memories are Disney movies. Grimm's was where I figured out that these were stories everyone knew - folklore?

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Dec 09 - 05:57 PM

I can't remember any picture books pre-reading I did either, but there must have been some.

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: Jeri
Date: 14 Dec 09 - 06:42 PM

Mary, do this and this look familiar?

Sorry--I couldn't find Wynken, Blynken & Nod. I have that book, and I can't tell you how precious it is to me. I think it was the illustrations more than the stories and poems, because they inspired my imagination and sense of beauty.

I've never read 'Wild Things', but I've seen it. I'm guessing its popularity has more to do with how strongly kids identify with it and how deeply it inspires their imaginations. I've read some beautifully written books that have left me completely cold. Even some that I've enjoyed don't linger in my memory and heart the way a book that makes me feel part of the story lingers.

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: SINSULL
Date: 14 Dec 09 - 06:47 PM

That's the book, Jeri. I had no idea what calico or gingham was. I can remember being totally confused by it. No Wynken, Blinken and Nod?
Bring the book on New Years. I would love to take a look.
SINS

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: SINSULL
Date: 14 Dec 09 - 06:48 PM

Does it start with The Swing?
Oh how I love to go up in a swing
Up in the world so high.
????????????

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: Jeri
Date: 14 Dec 09 - 06:55 PM

It starts with W,B&N--I just couldn't find an image on line. 'The Swing' is in between 'The Week's Calendar' and 'The Lame Squirrel's Thanksgiving'. I'll bring it.

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: Charley Noble
Date: 14 Dec 09 - 07:49 PM

My mother, who has authored and illustrated some 30 children's books, was often criticized by her editors for using multi-syllable words in her stories, even when the main characters were dinosaurs! The editors believe that children should only have to deal with simple words, and they even had a suggested maximum set of such words. The editors didn't win that argument with mother, and I certainly have observed that generations of children love reciting multi-syllable dinosaur names and other tongue-twisters. And it may also have kept the caregivers who read the books from growing bored.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Dec 09 - 12:18 AM

Children are smart! They will very quickly rise to the level that is offered to them. The same is true of the general public...and if Hollywood, TV, and the politicians realized that...and bothered to offer their public high quality and originality rather than simplistic and hackneyed crap....why just imagine what THAT might do!

Instead, they appear to work on the principle: "garbage in - garbage out"   Ka-Ching! More money. Well, you can soon make more money offering people quality stuff too, instead of the garbage, once people get acquainted with quality stuff they will LOVE it.

Children can figure out the multi-syllable words and more complex language in no time flat, and they can be reading material way better than what they are usually offered in school in no time flat too...just give them the chance.

I remember being amazed at the simplistic "Dick and Jane" stuff they put in front of me in school when I first went there. It was a joke. I'd already gone so far past it at home that it seemed completely lame and ridicuous.

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: CarolC
Date: 15 Dec 09 - 01:21 AM

I like many kinds of children's books, including those with lots of words (like Wind in the Willows, etc.), but some of my favorites have no words at all, like the Harold and his Purple Crayon books. Those are wonderful books for children. Books don't need to have words in them to be good books.

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: Lox
Date: 15 Dec 09 - 03:33 AM

"I took the moon for a walk"

Poem set to pictures.

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 15 Dec 09 - 07:53 AM

I remember some books with pictures before I could read, but they were Thomas the tank engine and Beatrix Potter ones and so had the words there as well which made me want to be able to read them. One of my favourites was the Wind in the willows as well whe it was read to me in installments as a bedtime story, particularly the first meeting of Mole and Ratty and the later return to Mole's home on a dark winter's evening.
I think that even then I was learning that the best pictures were the ones in your head.
Another early picture book for me was my father's "Railway Ribaldry" by W Heath Robinson, in which the humour was so obvious. It might have been that and going to see the Emmet Christmas railway on display in a department store in Cheltenham (about 1957/8 I think, anyone remember it?)gave me an appreciation of how cartoons could amusingly distort reality.

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Dec 09 - 02:39 PM

The best pictures are definitely the ones in your head, but I am certainly not opposed to well-illustrated picture books for either kids or adults. I've seen some wonderful picture books. A child can benefit from either picture books or written materials, so I'd be entirely in favor of both of them...or combinations of the two. The old editions of Winnie-the-Pooh and The Wind in the Willows both had great art in them that really added to the storyline.

In fact...I think combining text with visual art is the best way to go.

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 15 Dec 09 - 02:58 PM

I remember my old Rupert books - which had lovely detailed B&W drawings combined with simple two line verses (for younger readers with Mum & Dad) PLUS longer passages of prose, containing a more detailed version of the story.

What a great idea - does anyone put out '3 in 1' books like that anymore?

For pre-reading, my strongest impressions surround pop-up books, especially with the bits that moved when you pulled bits. But again it was all in the tiny details, like the little cheese-thieving mice gingerly sneaking past the snoozing cat on tippy toes. Or some naughty fairy peeping through the bushes in the bottom left-hand corner.. all the details for little eyes to spot and compose their own stories from.

Subject: RE: BS: What's with 'The Wild Things'?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 15 Dec 09 - 05:09 PM

I liked the movie Wild Things.

Denise Richards is just extremely hot!

And she has a beautiful face too!

Art