Where the Wild Things are

Where the Wild Things are is a sample of Children's Literature. This book wrote by Maurice Sendak. This book is 1963 Children's book written and illustrated by American writer and illustrator Maurice Sendak and first published by Harper & Row. The book has been adapted into other media several times. Including an animated short in 1978, a 1980 opera, and a live-action feature & film adaptation in 2009.      

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Verbal Elements

•Writer’s Purpose

     The purpose of the author why he wrote this kind of literature because in his youth growing up with Brooklyn and relationship to his parents affect his experiences. He intended to write his own experiences and people that he knew that's why the story become his self expression.

•Plot Summary 

      Max is the main character of the story. He was a boy who his mother sent him to bed without eating his dinner. When he fall asleep his room transform in a wild forest. There is a boat waiting from max to find the place where the wild things are. He sail in the ocean through days, weeks and years. When he find the place where the wild things are. Creatures show their threatening roar, roll their terrible eyes, and show their claws, but max didn't afraid. He looks them in his eyes without any blink, the wild things are realize that Max is the most wild of all of them. Then he became a their king. He manage the group of creatures and let them the wild rumpus start. After the rumpus he send the wild things are to bed without their dinner just like what his mother do to him. Then he miss his mother and he decide to come back to the world that he loves the most.

•Characters

>The main character is Max, the boy who sail his boat to go where the wild things are. 

>Max mother who send him to bed without a dinner.

>The group of wild creatures that the story describe as a wild things.

•Setting

Max room at night, in the house.

•Themes

The story theme shows imagination can use to travel with different places and create the world that we want to escape from reality.

•Style

     It use pictures and painting to illustrate the story that's is why the book is known as a picture book. It is more on illustration of things that happened to the main character.

Visual Elements

     The Visual Elements in the story was depends on the action of the main character. In Max house, the layout of picture is bold to show the real world of the character. In the place where the wild things are, the layout is fade out to show that it is just Max imagination and far from reality. The color used is accurate for children because the many colors can be seen.

>The author used different images to illustrate the things that comes from Max imagination.

>He used shapes to form an image illustratting the Max house, the forest, trees, boat, and group of wild creatures.

Other Stylistic Elements

•Musical Quality

When it talks about the film of Where the Wild Things are the music that has been used is children's music. Sometimes the music is mysterious and when the wild creatures appear the sound become into fast beat to give impact according to the situation.

•Story Interest

Psychologists are particularly interested in Sendak's work because of his strikingly unusual abilities to gain access to, and represent in words and pictures, fantasies that accompany childish rage states.

My Reactions to the story

The story was good for children in order to help them to explore and expand their imagination. The author used his creativity to show the good essence of the story. It will help readers, especially children, in a way of making them to realize how powerful the "Humans Mind". Our minds has the ability to imagine and create the world that we want. Sometimes I used my imagination to escape from reality, and also to escape unpleasant feelings I have experienced. I can create a story and a world that I can control all the situation I want to happen. Just like the story taught to me, imagination is a powerful tool to explore and discover something useful in our lives.

My Reading Experiences

During our class in Prelim I cannot say reading is my hobby and what makes me happy, but everytime my teacher ask us to read children's literature I read it and I can say that reading is fun because it's allow me to imagine different things and experience it through reading. Also from our lessons I recall different children's stories that I have heard during elementary days. I believe that literature is a big part of my childhood that helps me to develop my moral character. I recall and learn. As a future language teacher, reading helps me yo learn something useful for the near future.