As did many others on opening day, I saw Where The Wild Things Are and did so with a lot of excitement and hype.

I have forever loved the book and, as an infants teacher, it is a staple in my teaching. I love reading it and I love sharing that love with children. This is a book that little kids love because they can relate to the not so perfect Max and they get excited by his wild adventures.

The excitement was over the book, but the hype came from having it being directed by Spike Jonze, written by Dave Eggers, starring some great actors and music scored by Karen O. How could this go wrong?

It didn’t. The film lived up to everything I imagined and was shot so beautifully I wanted to cry. In fact, I did at one point in the story.

Max Records is brilliant as Max and Spike Jonze wasn’t afraid to show the true darkness of the book. Yes, it’s a children’s picture book but Max is a naughty boy who does bad things and the Wild Things are nasty creatures who Max ends up wanting to escape from. Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers did a great job at portraying that and managed to add some sort of narrative to what is essentially a not very long picture book. Not an easy task!

You may not like the film, it’s not exactly for kids and it’s a little bit strange. The Wild Things have some serious issues. However, I loved it… it is beautiful to look at and I haven’t stopped thinking about it.

There is a great blog called We Love You So that has some fun links to all Wild Things. Check out the awesome forts people have been building. I want to build one for Halloween!

Urban Outfitters have some cute t shirts and Max dolls while McSweeney’s is selling Dave Eggers’ novel adaptation of the book.

I’ve been listening to Karen O and the kids all week and Sean swiped me a poster from Zulu Records.

Images from Google Images and We Love You So.