I've been seeing and hearing a lot about the
Where the Wild Things Are movie that will be released October 16th. I remember the book fondly from my own childhood: letting the wild rumpus start and roaring my terrible roars. The book is well-used and appropriately fraying at the edges sitting on a shelf at my parents house. I don't recall being afraid of the book, but with that said, I don't remember how old I was when this book was first read to me.
My son just turned four, and for about the past six months, we've encountered people making mention of the book to my son. Which is fine, but . . . I haven't read it to my son yet. I can hear you already: "It's a childhood classic! You have hundreds of childrens books, and you haven't purchased Where the Wild Things Are?" Er. . . no. See, my son's a pro at bedtime (ask any babysitter). He's an only child and despite our moves and travel, we've maintained the same bedtime routine for him. He's never come downstairs from his room to ask us questions after we've tucked him in. He hasn't been afraid of the dark, or claimed to see monsters under his bed or in his closet, or cried or delayed sleep. We recently read the book Bedtime for Frances by Russell Hoban and noticed right away from his questions and comments that the tiger in the room, and the crack in the ceiling that could lead to spiders coming in were new concepts to my son. He had never considered anything "living' in the dark or coming to get him in his room at night. I almost regretted reading it to him in the first place! I've felt the same way about Where the Wild Things Are - not that I don't think it's a great classic childhood story (I do!), but that I'm afraid it will introduce scary concepts to my son and I don't want to cause him to have nightmares or trouble falling asleep in the darkness of his room.
The movie looks imaginative and fun and unlike anything else we've seen (How talented is that Spike Jonze?), and I'm glad they've rated it PG rather than G as I know children at two or three years old have parts of the book memorized - but my son's four, and until recently I haven't even considered it for him. He's seen lots of movies with grown-up mentions or jokes (Cars, Bolt, Finding Nemo, Madagascar, Wall-e, all of the Shreks, Camp Rock, High School Musical, even parts of Spiderman, Transformers and Star Wars, etc.) but none of them were threatening to him as a child. They were about older kids or grown-ups or animals and detached from him. Eventhough competitive or showing violence (which we fast-forwarded through), they weren't about children and monsters acting terribly. (We have read Meet Wild Boars by Meg Rosoff and Sophie Blackall, and while fun, I'm not always such a big fan of celebrating bad behavior. . .) So I've been worried about putting such images and thoughts in his head. Mostly because then I'LL have to deal with them.
I understand that the overall theme of Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak is unconditional family love and the imaginative process a young boy uses to make sense of his world. So perhaps me balking at wanting to introduce the story to my son is me inflicting my own problem-solving process on him. I use exercise to combat stress or bad moods, and I do the same with my son. If he's acting up, I get him outside in the fresh air and moving. Rather than creativity, I use nature or physical activity to make sense of my world. This realization is making me feel a bit guilty for closing something off for my son.
So now with us seeing the commercials and trailer for the movie, I'm thinking it's time for me to read Where the Wild Things Are to Li'l Boo, and I'll pick it up this week. Have I put way too much thought into this? Has anyone else run into a situation when they've read a book or watched a movie that has inadvertently caused their child to consider a new frightening concept and struck fear in them? I'd hate to bring the getting out of bed, sleep-delaying activities on myself. . .
_300.png)
