Yes, Where the Wild Things Are Is Banned!

Where the Wild Things Are is Maurice Sendak’s 338-word masterpiece about a boy named Max who, after being sent to bed without supper for terrorizing the household in his wolf costume, sails to an island inhabited by enormous monsters. He tames them with a magic trick, becomes their king, presides over a “wild rumpus,” and then gives it all up to go home, where his supper is waiting “and it was still hot.” The book won the Caldecott Medal in 1964, has sold over 20 million copies, and remains one of the most beloved picture books in the English language.

The book was controversial from the moment it was published. Southern libraries and schools banned it almost immediately in 1963, and prominent child psychologist Bruno Bettelheim criticized it in Ladies’ Home Journal in 1969, calling it too frightening for young children (while admitting he hadn’t actually read it). The book was pulled from shelves in multiple states throughout the following decades. Critics objected to Max’s “bad behavior” (he chases the dog with a fork), the dark and sometimes frightening illustrations, and the suggestion that a child could be angry at his mother without consequence. Some also pointed to the supernatural elements and alleged witchcraft imagery.

Why You Should Read This

Sendak understood something fundamental about children: they have enormous feelings, including rage, and those feelings need somewhere to go. Max doesn’t get punished for being angry. He gets to be king of the wild things, roar his terrible roar, and then choose to come home. The book says: your anger is real, it can be wild, and you can survive it. That’s an astonishing thing to tell a four-year-old.

The book runs 10 sentences long. The illustrations do the heavy lifting, growing from small bordered images to full-bleed double-page spreads during the rumpus, then shrinking back as Max returns home. It’s a masterclass in visual storytelling that most picture book artists still study.

People have been trying to protect children from this book for 60 years. In that time, roughly 20 million children have read it and turned out fine. Many of them grew up and bought it for their own kids. The wild things are still there, waiting to be tamed.