This Moose Belongs to Me

Author: Oliver Jeffers
Ages: 5+ to all adults who love quirky moose and a little enlightenment :o)

image courtesy:http://www.oliverjeffers.com/media/TMBTM-04-05_F.jpg 

I am a great admirer of the Geethacharam. Roughly translated, it means:

What has happened, has happened for good
What is happening, is for good
And what will happen would be for good
What possession that was truly yours did you lose
For you to cry over?
What did you bring (into the world) for you to lose it?
What did you create yourself that has been destroyed?
Whatever you took for yourself belongs here
And Whatever you give out belongs here, too
What is yours today will be another's tomorrow
And yet another's, another day.
This is the  principle of the world
This is the essence of creation, of evolution.

Who would have thought that all it takes is a Moose and a funny little boy to make kids understand such a beautiful lesson in life! Hats off to Oliver Jeffers for coming up with this gem of a book - This Moose belongs  to me.

Wilfred finds a moose in his garden, names him " Marcel" thereby proclaiming it belongs to him. He wanders in the woods and mountains with Marcel. He makes many rules for Marcel to follow, to train him. Some of them include serving drinks when he needs, getting things for him that are out of his reach, sheltering him from rain, not disturbing when he plays his records and many such funny rules. Marcel of course, is totally nonchalant. He cares two hoots about the rules, but by nature does things that sometimes tick off some of these rules.

And all is well until one day a lady comes up and calls Marcel as Rodrigo and says it is hers. Much to the fury of Wilfred, Marcel acts as if Wilfred didn't even exist and goes readily to the lady, who has an apple in her hand for him.

An angry Wilfred stomps back home, only to be tangled in a mess by a length of rope that he had left behind. But then he gets rescued by Marcel ( or so he thinks), who then goes to another man who comes by and calls him Dominic and claims that it is his moose!

Hidden inside all the funny, yet very perfect story and illustrations are so many beautiful facts stated in Gitacharam. The Moose belongs to no one, everyone simply assumes it is theirs. It comes and goes as it pleases, people get attached to it, but it is like an enlightened being, just not belonging to anyone. It comes from the woods, goes back into the woods.

You get caught in a mess, you are saved out of a mess. These things happen on no account of no merit from your side, it JUST happens.

And even if every now and then things might look as if they belong to you, it is JUST your illusion.

Accept it, you own nothing. Not even your children, as Gibran says.
(They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you....)

Oliver Jeffers' illustrations are also so perfect, the emotions beautifully shown and the book feels very much complete and wholesome with his drawings.

This Moose belongs to Me. This book belongs to me, or does it?!

(The Hueys in) The New Jumper

US: The Hueys in The New Sweater
Author and Illustrator: Oliver Jeffers
Ages: 3+

I remember when Seth Godin's book was released, Purple Cows were very much in! Being different suddenly became a trend that was so religiously followed. Actually so much followed that suddenly, being normal became the new fashion :o).

Jokes apart, this book by Oliver Jeffers is a children's version of The Purple Cow. Only, it doesn't really talk about standing out in the business as much as saying that being different could be so much fun. And how fashion trends go from initial rejection to passive aversion to almost Swine Flu-ishly feverish copying world-wide! ( Gangnam-ishly viral, to make it sound "in trend" as of now :o))

The Hueys ( they are just plain cute - plain and cute!) are a clone-ly lot of beings: they think the same, act the same, do the same and are just the same. That was the rule of the clan - Always same to same :o).

Then comes a stir in the form of Rupert. This Huey is suddenly taken by a whim and knits himself an orange jumper ( sweater).  Looking at his proud display, the Huey town goes into a state of violent shock at the eye sore. Rupert stands out like a sore thumb, didn't he know the rules of being a Huey! Tongues wag behind in disgust, baby Hueys cry looking at this aberration, Mama and Dada Hueys get plain sick, drop their things and get into little accidents just at the sight of this orange-clad anomaly.

But then Rupert's friend Gillespie thinks "Why not!" and he knits himself the same jumper. One is madness, but two different Hueys look curiously cool. Hueys start looking at the daring pair with rising admiration and start wondering "Hmm. Want that!".

And hell, no, wool(orange) breaks loose in Hueyland. Every Huey wants to be different and is busy knitting away orange jumpers. Orange jumpers jump high up in the trend so much.Each Huey thinks it is so different, so Orange and cool. Suddenly all the Hueys in town look different ( and hence, the same :o)).

All until Rupert decides to wear a Hat.

Quite rightly, Gillespie hits his head, perhaps imagining the frantic fever that is going to grip the town again to "look cool and different". The good thing about the ending is that all Hueys are shown wearing totally different outfits and being very happy about being different.

Such a wonderful story, and this is not at all the first time I am wondering if any of these books is meant only for children at all. I rather INSIST that adults get to read these books. They should really be used with older children as well as a discussion point on how fashion trends are created and more important, how it is actually quite nice to be different and original.

My boys loved the story very, very much. The best part of the book is the seemingly very simply drawings. Which means that the kids have created dozens of Hueys since the day they read this book.

I found out that you can design your own Hueys here. Something that the younger children love to do over and over.

You can get a sneak peek into the book here.

And there is a reading of the book here.

Oliver Jeffers says he was greatly influenced in childhood by Maurice Sendak's works, and in particular one of my favourite books,  Where the Wild things are.

He has written many other sweet, quirky, funny and subtly touching books - Lost and Found, How to Catch a Star, This Moose belongs to Me, Stuck, Heart and the Bottle to name some.

The New Jumper. A trendsetter!

The Lost Thing

Author and Illustrator: Shaun Tan
Ages: 10 - 100+

What are we doing like hamsters in wheels, grinding through each day with a pre-programmed set of tasks...

What are we doing, running madly week after week, like horses in reins, never bothering to notice what is happening around us...

Too busy to care, too pre-occupied to bother, no time to be sensitive to beings around, yet always trying to belong somewhere or with someone, a system, a clan whether or not it makes us happy. Whether or not we feel belonged!

The Lost thing is one of the most disturbing, unsettling books I have ever come across in the recent times. I mean unsettling in a very positive way here, for Shaun Tan has created such a wonderful piece of "surreal reality" in his book. Every single drawing tells a story. Each time you read the book, it conveys a new meaning, a new angle. I understand the author's apprehension in his book being designated for kids' shelves. It is a more intricate, more mature story with more profound hidden questions for adults. It is one of the books that look so artistic and rich that you would want to proudly display in your bookshelf. At least that is how I look at it.

No surprise then, that the animated version of the book won an Oscar for the best animated short film category in 2011. Or that the book itself won many literary awards in many countries.

The book is about a beach combing boy whose hobby is collecting and classifying bottle tops. During one such expedition he comes across a weird metallic thing looking like a red kettle with a green octopus inside standing alone on the beach. Nobody seems to have noticed is, neither is anybody bothered to check it out. Plain apathy, or perhaps they do not dare to venture out of the mundane daily life.

The boy, maybe due to his sensitivity to surroundings or perhaps because he has time in his hands, notices the thing and pities it and takes it home. Mum and Dad barely notice it either, as they are too busy reading newspaper or watching TV. It is as if they do not even allow an interruption to their routine, no matter how dull and mechanical their routine is. Between their pre-occupation, they ask the boy to take it back and immediately forget about it. The boy then takes it to his friend, who basically has something to say about everything. But this lost thing defies his knowledge and he admits that it is as if it came from nowhere and belongs nowhere!

Then the boy sees an advert asking people to bring in any strange things that they find anywhere and so takes the lost thing there. There he is given, unsurprisingly, a HUGE bundle of paperwork to be completed for the same. (Makes you wonder if this is also one of the reasons why we seldom bother to turn in any lost things we find to concerned authorities.). As he stands there wondering what to do, someone approaches him and tells him that if he turned the thing in, it would just disappear under a barrage of more such things, classified and forgotten, never to be seen again. And if he really cared,  he should take it to another place. The boy finally leaves the thing in that new place, which seems to have even more weird looking creatures, none of which seemed to belong there, but looked happy enough.

The story concludes with the boy saying that he still thinks about the lost thing, especially when he notices something that doesn't quite fit, something with a weird, sad sort of look. But he sees less and less of such things as days pass, maybe because there aren't any more lost things. Or perhaps he just stopped noticing them. Maybe he is simply too busy doing other stuff.

The end haunts us and questions us long after the story is over.

The background is a world of fantasy, bleak and filled with only metallic things in a rusty environment. There is simply no plant life. Maybe that is what would happen when we stop caring. When all we think of is our self and our chronic daily existence.

The "thing" could be anything. Anyone. Do we care enough to do what the boy did when we see a sad, helpless soul around? Do we even bother to stop and enquire? Or are we like all those insensitive, busy people, simply with no time to care? Do we try to see things differently? Is it nice to be creative and with imagination, or is it better to be a run of the mill creature?

I must really thank my elder son for introducing Shaun Tan to me. He had read a Shaun Tan book called " The Arrival" in school. It is another stunning story with absolutely no words, about an immigrant in a new land, away from family. I am yet to get my hands on that book, but from what I have read, it is yet another masterpiece...

The Lost Thing.  Helps you find your self.

A Child's Garden - a story of hope

Author and Illustrator: Michael Foreman
Ages: 5+

It is never easy to explain to children about war. It is always a very painful subject and brings only negative emotions and fears. But it would be a lot better to handle it by also talking about the extreme resilience of the human spirit, hope and healing.

Michael Foreman has done a nice work of handling both very delicately in "A Child's Garden". This book has been endorsed by Amnesty international UK as contributing to a better understanding of human rights and the values that underpin them.

A little boy lives in a world of ruins, dust and rubbles and barbed wires. Separating yesterday's neighbours and friends as strangers is a fence of barbed wire. The landscape is black and white and grey. Sad and barren, it has destruction written all over it.

One day after the rain, the boy sees a dash of hope. A tiny green plant is trying to establish its roots in his side of the fence. The boy immediately takes to it, and shelters it from the scorching sun with rags and broken bricks. He waters it with the rain water collected in old tins. The plant grows into a grapevine that clings on to the fence and spreads out its green tendrils everywhere.

Soon, the place is bursting with colour. Butterflies and birds make it home and children play under the shades. Laughter and merriness are back! The memory of ruins and war is forgotten for a while.

But not for long, though. The soldiers on the other side uproot the vine and throw it in a ditch on their side. The little boy looks over to the hills in the yonder where he once used to go with his Dad, but now are on the wrong side. Life is back to black, white and grey and the boy is overcome with grief.

 

image courtesy www.guardian.co.uk/books

Winter passes, cold and harsh. Spring arrives late, but the boy sees new green shoots both on his side and also the other side of the fence. A little girl tends to the vine on the other side, the soldiers not really minding it as the plant is now on their side. The vines grow on both the sides and the tendrils get entwined over the fence. And the colours are back! Together, the vines spread out shade and hope on either sides. The children forget all their worries and play happily, laughter sounding again!

And the boy comprehends a very positive message. Let the soldiers come again and uproot the vines. It wouldn't matter anymore. The roots are deep. The seeds multiply. The plants will find a way out again. They don't give up after being battered down. Instead, they simply endure it all and rise back in all their glory.

Maybe, one day, the fence would go as well. And the children would be able to climb up the lush hills and be friends again.

(There Are Ways
To Get There
If You Care Enough
For The Living
Make A Little Space
Make A Better Place.
Heal the world we live in, save it for our children)

Michael foreman has made the illustrations really stand out. It would have been a heavy responsibility to create a picture of a war-torn landscape, yet instilling hope and faith. It is not threatening, yet there is ample detail and the parents can talk as much or as less about the pictures. The author does not mention any countries, but it could be just any neighbours torn apart by war.

This book touched me in many ways. It was a reminder to count the blessings and be thankful for every safe morning I wake up to. And teach these values to my children - a message of caring, thankfulness, hope and extraordinary endurance.

 A Child's garden. Fragrant and promising.

P:S He has also illustrated Snow Tales, which I had reviewed previously.

Horrid Henry

Author: Francesca Simon
Illustrator: Tony Ross
Ages: 5+

Caution: Some parents may find Horrid Henry books too horrid for their children, with bad manners and horrid words.

I love Dennis the Menace. I simply adore Tom Sawyer. I have to admit, I do really enjoy naughty children stories. There is something extremely appealing and cute about Krishna after he has nicked all the butter. If it weren't for the naughty kids, you would never have those awesome stories to tell their wife and kids later on! (did I get my double negative right?!?).

My elder son's naughty tales run for pages together - locking neighbours inside their house, rubbing out neighbours' carefully drawn kolams, pressing the elevator buttons from the top floor just when people are about to exit the lift in lower floors, thereby making them travel all the way up (and down and up again * 4 at least). But the little one is more of a conformist ( we call him the Rules Ramanujam of our house!). Still, his conformist ideas would sometimes include flushing brand new mobiles down the toilet, posting bread and Chapatis in the DVD player, pulling out springs from all pens and hiding them in the freezer, washing machine, Mum's boots and other such "safe" places..

Also these days it is a constant fight to act as the "good boy" in front of mum and more important, framing the other one as being wicked. And when I wonder if I am making some mistake in bringing them up, I am reminded of all my fights with my sister and all my cousins and realize it is just an enticing part of growing up, a rite of passage into and out of teens.

Which is why Horrid Henry is such a huge success. I personally haven't read even one, I find them a bit too silly ( Alas, senility is eating into me already!). But I have a major soft spot for them, because it was the first ever book that was independently read by my elder son when he was 5. And since then, he has never stopped reading! He has got every single one of the books, many signed by Francesca Simon, the author. Even now, I find him delving into one of these and it is a collection he proudly displays in his room!

Francesca Simon has also had the books translated into many languages, and is one of the most read Children's authors. She has also won awards and accolades for Horrid Henry books. Horrid Henry books always figure on the libraries' Top 10 lists of borrowed books.

The books are very concise reads, with 4 crisp episodes in every book, short enough to keep the newly independent reader engaged and wanting more. The settings are the ones that kids immediately associate themselves with - classroom, fair, school trips, plays, lunch breaks, dinnertime with siblings, sleepovers, making secret clubs and everything else equally childish. And are almost always about the fights and chaos and the usual telling off that ensues.

The characters have alliterative names ( Moody Margaret, Sour Susan, Perfect Peter etc) and loathsome traits! Horrid Henry is the bad big brother and Perfect Peter is the annoyingly perfect and smug younger brother. You can pretty much guess the stories from this. Amidst all the chaos and name calling, there is a steady flow of nice words for kids to pick up (some words I picked up from Horrid Henry and the Zombie Vampire - scuttling, lisping, puny, lurched, craning, unearthly). I wouldn't expect a 5 year old to know these words and when the kids keep reading the book again and again, they end up registering the words as well along with their meaning.

Perhaps it is the brat in every child and hence a vicarious satisfaction of being a rebel for a while that makes them want more of Horrid Henry, as they never seem to tire of Henry's bad traits. And I have seen that it is the anti-hero Henry that kids adore, not the ever-so-perfect Peter! Even if Henry uses all the dirty tricks in the book to bully his younger brother and ends up paying for it, the children still side Henry.

The books have been made into TV Serials and you can find loads of episodes on Youtube.  The schools even use the books to discuss PSHE ( Personal, Social, Health Education) topics and find it rather easy to refer back to these characters and discuss good and unacceptable behaviour and the aftermath. It is almost like the lessons in Mahabharatha, on how NOT to be!

The complete list of books released so far can be found here.

Horrid Henry.  Horribly Hilarious!

We're Going On a Bear Hunt

Author: Michael Rosen
Illustrator: Helen Oxenbury
Ages: 2+

My little boy came home with a handful of scratches yesterday. Hands full of scratches and scrapes, to be precise. He had been jostled against his more agile classmates in the post-break scramble to class. Having proved to his mates that he was a brave young man with a "Bah, no pain at all" face, he came home whining like the wee boy that he actually is. As much as I cuddled and comforted him, I also quite frankly told him it was going to burn and pain for a while before it went away and that he would have to be brave and bear it. He immediately said " Oh I know! The pain. It's like the bear hunt, Mum! - We can't go over it, we can't go under it. Oh No! We have to go through it!".

It was one of those special moments when your patient efforts bear the most beautiful fruit of understanding and acknowledgement in your little one. I was so moved, touched by his reasoning. I knew then that all the time I had spent reading to him hadn't been in vain.

So then of course, I had to blog it!

We're going on a bear hunt, by Michael Rosen, is a very catchy poem for children. It is about a family that decides to go on a bear hunt and their rather adventurous trail into the bear cave. And the rush back home when the bear comes after them. Told as a poem with nice repetition, adjectives and onomatopoeia (just did Grammar with elder son heh heh), it gets the children's enthusiasm up to infectious levels!

The family has to tackle wavy grass, oozy mud, splashy river, a forest and a snow storm before they could get into a cave and see a bear. But when they do see one, they are scared out of their wits and they go running back again through all of the same things and into their bedroom, with the bear in  close pursuit. Once tucked safely in bed, they decide they would never ever go on a bear hunt again.

The bear gives up the chase and goes back home. I actually like the last page picture of a rather sad looking bear ( you can only see the rear, but it does all the talking! ;o)). It kind of gives you a feeling that the bear is rather a timid one that maybe only wanted them as friends, not dinner! And perhaps it was sad of being rejected thus and made its lonely walk back to its cave. Awwww....

And if you hear Michael Rosen reciting it, the infection quotient truly multiplies many times over. You know I really have a soft spot for egg-eyed people ( sorry if that appears to be the worst ever equivalent of Muttai kann, in Tamil!), and Michael Rosen's eyes certainly top that category. Even better, his eyes do all the talking and singing for him! You should definitely check it out here.

As always, here is an online reading of the book.

Here's an animated version.

This is a poem that me and my little boy sing almost every day while walking through the woods to school. The vagaries of British weather means that we have gone through most of what is in the poem, sometimes all on a single day! Sans the bear that is. And perhaps with an odd fox thrown in for a good measure :o)

We're Going On a Bear Hunt. You have to go through it!

Tea Break - English Breakfast

Get your gut into action after breakfast with this lovely tea, a blend of Assam and Ceylon teas.

Well, the writer's block? It's for real.

Not that I claim to be a writer :o). But the block thing is sadly true.

You know you sometimes get an epiphany when you're working your way through dirty dish piles. Or quietly folding away clean laundry. Or perhaps lingering in a really hot shower (which you would never step out of, had it not been for the existence of a water meter). All of a sudden, too many things start making sense and these wonderful, bloggable ideas float in your mind: pellucid bubbles lifting away ever so gently. And  you're so happy and start counting the dozen or so blog posts that could materialize from that bubble stream. But by the time you are done with whatever you have been doing and open the laptop to create those posts, the bubbles have long popped without any trace of having ever existed. :o(

Don't EVER count the bubbles before you blog! Sigh!

And there has also been this major distraction to my blogging ( rather, not blogging!) penance. In the form of a bag from Coimbatore that my friend has been luring me with. Shapely sweets in inviting colours and celestially enticing savouries all decked up and garnished and dancing in front of my inner eye (Daffodils now replaced with Jalebis and Murukku). Hence my mind has not been retaining the calm that I badly need to pen the posts. Must dash to her house, collect the distraction and banish it by feeding it to my gastric juices ASAP!

Anyways, there is this wonderful kids' thing coming up in London, the Imagine Children's Festival
where the children can get to meet many renowned British authors who write for children and young adults. My elder son has been so keen on meeting Anthony Horrowiz ( of the Alex Rider series' fame) and Derek Landy ( Skulduggery Pleasant, the undead detective!) , but unfortunately the shows got sold out the day the booking opened. We still do plan to go and have a look around, maybe get our books autographed if lucky! The festival ends with the "Red House Book Awards for Children's books" and the nominated books are sold in Red House website for a lot less than the cover price and are a good bargain, as ever.

That brings up nostalgic memories of the International Book festival in Edinburgh, where super famous authors and debutant writers come down from all over the world. We would go there every day just to see our favourite authors, lounge in the bookshop, queue for autographs and eat, drink, walk, talk books. What a sight to behold that was! Also, the book stalls would sell a small bunch of autographed copies of books by the authors visiting that day and you'd be so lucky if you managed to pick one. Other than the Horrid Henry books that my boys got personalized autographs in ( for themselves and friends), we now also have autographed copies of some very good children's writers. We would get back home tired, but extremely pleased with ourselves and our achievements for the day.

Beautiful Edinburgh! Apart from my hometown, this is one place that I would be missing for a long long time, I guess. What a lovely place to live!

( at least 20 sighs later...) Must probably get back to being lazy.  Edinburgh it would be, for the next Tea Break!

Story Cove - Online stories

Some years back I was searching online for stories for my younger son. It was the time when he was entering into terrible twos and every meal would need exquisite preparation. The meal in itself was just basic, it was the amount of toys and diversions and stories that needed to accompany the meal that needed all the preparation. Every diversion would not hold good for more than 3 mouthfuls, after which the tactics would need to be dramatically changed.

Back then, I never had the heart to get him into a high chair and simply let him stay there with his food doing whatever he wanted with it for as long as he wanted. Maybe it would have helped him, but I somehow thought that a Mother's feeding ( not even spoon, just hand) was a more natural way of lingering a bit more on the special bonding that forms during nursing. Well of course quite soon, around his third birthday, I stopped all the feeding, just promoted him to the table to sit with his brother and he picked up quickly and became independent immediately. Stories still remained a part of table routine for a little longer, though.

It was during one such frantic preparation search that I hit upon Story Cove.  It required a free registration which was a quick process and then I tried the very first one,  Anansi and the pot of beans with my boy. It became an instant hit. The jingles were catchy and the children loved it. The story was nicely told and the kids made me cook beans for days together! We then ventured deeper and realized all the stories were equally good. There was no violence, nothing hurting, it was completely safe and positive and with some learning in most of the stories as well. I remember sharing this site with friends and family back then, and everybody had something good to say about them!

The stories are mostly old folk tales from various continents retold in a simple way with added animation. Most of the stories are also accompanied by lesson plans and activities that have some good information about the animals featuring in the story etc. The stories are also available as books, which I am sure would be just as lovely. I checked out today and found out that it is also available for sale on ebay in UK. But the children have outgrown these stories, so I guess I'll never have the chance of seeing these books!

If you have children aged between 2 and 5 or even 6, Story cove is certainly a site to try. If you, like me, have kids who ask you to just tell them a story ( not read, not show, just tell), you could prepare yourself quite well with these :o). It was a welcome break for me, my boys always want me to make up "Pillayar Murugan Adventures" on the go. There's only so much an Enid Blyton book could do in terms of helping in cooking up an adventure in 5 mins, so in between such imagined adventures, Story Cove tales served as welcome substitutes and the kids would love listening to them, particularly Anansi stories.

Happy reading and story-telling!

 

Where the Wild Things are

Author: Maurice Sendak
Ages: 3+

After my last post about the graphic and scary illustrations and demons in stories being like similes and metaphors for man's negative qualities, I was somehow reminded of this wonderful book that we used to enjoy reading a lot - Where the Wild Things are. I somehow forgot the author and asked my elder son if he knew. He went, "Oh! That's the book President Obama read to kids, it is by Maurice Sendak. Did you know he died last year? Did you know he was Jewish? And he wrote the book in 1963?".

That was information overloading for me. I quietly went to wiki to check out the facts, and they were bang on. It turns out that they had a special assembly about Maurice Sendak in school and listened to President Obama reading the book out to kids. Nice gesture by the school, I thought.

Imagine this situation. You get angry over a silly thing and then you keep on sticking to the angry mode, mainly because you've rather started revelling in it. You do and say things that you would regret later. You want to stop it, but you are enjoying the vent and rampage. And you continue brooding and sulking until the point where you realize it doesn't make sense any more. You actually long for the other person's attention, you want to be laughing with them and be normal again. That last bit of letting go isn't quite easy, as your indignant ego tries to pull you back into the anger. Finally, when you snap out of it, you find that a mega cuddle and smile puts everything back on track and you're back to normal.

Children go through this, too. They act wild sometimes and when they get told off , they sulk and stamp around for a bit too long, until they realize their mistake and quietly come behind you, eyes begging for a hug. A cuddle and a kiss and they are instantly transformed into tame puppies waiting to be pampered :o).

Max, the boy in this story, is like that. One day he exceeds his naughtiness levels and his annoyed mother calls him a wild thing. Max shouts at her that he would eat her up. So he gets grounded with a " No food go to bed" order in his bedroom. I guess he either sleeps off and dreams, or perhaps does an angry role play with his toys and the play tent that he sets up in his room. The room transforms into a forest and he sets sail in a boat to a land where the wild things are.

Now these things, they are wild, they have gnashing teeth and claws and look monstrous, but there is something really timid about them. Some pages have just illustrations and no text, but the pictures tell the story even better. Max tames all of them by looking into their eyes and then he becomes their king. They go on a rampage and create a great ruckus, until Max gets bored and sends them off to bed without food. Then his anger fizzles out and he feels really lonely and longs for home. But the wild things don't want to let him go. He finally somehow manages to come home to the smell of food ( of course mums seldom mean what they say!) in his table and he happily eats away.

When this came out as a movie, I was very much looking forward to seeing it. But somehow it was never meant to be. Not yet, at least. I read in reviews that the movie is on the mellow side and plays to the melancholic emotions. One of the reviews said "This movie portrays how children can lose their fear only by losing their innocence". Heavy, but eerily true sometimes.  I wonder if this ended up as one of those Disney movies which look like it is designed for the kids, but has all adult emotions tied inside. There's a child inside all of us, but alas! there ain't no grown ups inside kids! The good thing is that the children usually don't make the adult link, they just enjoy the movie as it is.

Max is wild. He is playful and has a vivid imagination. He has fear, anger, pride. He shouts at loved ones and then repents. He longs for love, forgiveness and acceptance. He is like us. He is us. (check your simile and metaphor!).

Here's an animated version in Youtube. And an audio book.

Some of the parents might object to the illustrations and the bad qualities exhibited by Max, and some children may not probably like seeing hideous creatures ( only as hideous as the illustration in the cover, maybe with some extra toothy grins and claws)

Where the Wild Things are. Right within us!