Onde vivem os monstros, Maurice Sendak

Publicado em 1963, o livro de Maurice Sendak

Where the Wild Things Are is a 1963 children's picture book by American writer and
illustrator Maurice Sendak, originally published by Harper & Row. The book has been
adapted into other media several times, including an animated short in 1973 (with an updated
version in 1988); a 1980 opera; and a live-action 2009 feature-film adaptation, directed
by Spike Jonze. The book had sold over 19 million copies worldwide as of 2009, with 10
million of those being in the United States.[2]
Sendak won the annual Caldecott Medal from the children's librarians in 1964,
recognizing Wild Things as the previous year's "most distinguished American picture book
for children".[3] It was voted the number one picture book in a 2012 survey of School Library
Journal readers, not for the first time.[4]
This story of only 338 words focuses on a young boy named Max who, after dressing in his
wolf costume, wreaks such havoc through his household that he is sent to bed without his
supper. Max's bedroom undergoes a mysterious transformation into a jungle environment,
and he winds up sailing to an island inhabited by malicious beasts known as the "Wild
Things." After successfully intimidating the creatures, Max is hailed as the king of the Wild
Things and enjoys a playful romp with his subjects. However, he starts to feel lonely and
decides to return home, to the Wild Things' dismay. Upon returning to his bedroom, Max
discovers a hot supper waiting for him.
According to Sendak, at first, the book was banned in libraries and received negative reviews.
It took about two years for librarians and teachers to realize that children were flocking to the
book, checking it out over and over again, and for critics to relax their views.[10] Since then, it
has received high critical acclaim. Francis Spufford suggests that the book is "one of the very
few picture books to make an entirely deliberate and beautiful use of the psychoanalytic story
of anger".[11] Mary Pols of Time magazine wrote that "[w]hat makes Sendak's book so
compelling is its grounding effect: Max has a tantrum and in a flight of fancy visits his wild
side, but he is pulled back by a belief in parental love to a supper 'still hot,' balancing the
seesaw of fear and comfort."[12] New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis noted that "there
are different ways to read the wild things, through a Freudian or colonialist prism, and
probably as many ways to ruin this delicate story of a solitary child liberated by his
imagination."[13] In Selma G. Lanes's book The Art of Maurice Sendak, Sendak
discusses Where the Wild Things Are along with his other books In the Night
Kitchen and Outside Over There as a sort of trilogy centered on children's growth, survival,
change, and fury.[14][15] He indicated that the three books are "all variations on the same
theme: how children master various feelings – danger, boredom, fear, frustration, jealousy –
and manage to come to grips with the realities of their lives."[14]
Based on a 2007 online poll, the National Education Association named the book one of its
"Teachers' Top 100 Books for Children".[16] Five years later School Library Journal sponsored
a survey of readers which identified Where the Wild Things Are as top picture
book.[4] Elizabeth Bird, the NYPL librarian who conducted the survey, observed that there
was little doubt it would be voted number one and highlighted its designation by one reader
as a watershed, "ushering in the modern age of picture books". Another called it "perfectly
crafted, perfectly illustrated ... simply the epitome of a picture book" and noted that Sendak
"rises above the rest in part because he is subversive". President Barack Obama read it
aloud for children attending the White House Easter Egg Roll in multiple years.[17]
Despite the book's popularity, Sendak refused to produce a sequel; four months before his
death in 2012, he told comedian Stephen Colbert that one would be "the most boring idea
imaginable".[18]