The Night Max Wore his Wolf Suit...

I have heard little bits and pieces about this for a while, but not until Just Now did it hit me how excited I am about it.

Dave Eggers and Spike Jonze (I couldn't have wished for any better) are taking on the insanely difficult task of making the children's book Where the Wild Things Are into a live action film. Actually, it appears they already have made it into a film and it is in "post production" right now. Due out October 2008.

Here's what New York Arts and Events has to say:

Eggers and Jonze — mostly, we suspect, Eggers — touchingly sketch this troubled family unit and carefully track the rising frustration and alarm Max feels as his world becomes darker and more unhappy, until, on page 21, he runs away, climbs aboard a boat, and sails to the island of the Wild Things.

There Jonze's influence begins to be felt, as the enormous creatures — with names like Carol, Alexander, and K.W. — look to Max as their King, and in a series of marvelous adventures, wrestle tornadoes, eat mud, and tame hawks. Always, though, there's a subtle undercurrent of menace, and it becomes clear that while spinning a yarn, Jonze and Eggers are also taking us on a tour of Max's psyche, as he works out so many of the issues that plague his young life.
(link)

Here is the still that shoved me over the edge from very interested to unbearably excited:


You see, this is no ordinary book for me. Ever since I was a kid, I could recite this book from start to finish. It's a gorgeous, dark, funny, adventurous, sad and heartwarming book that made my little girl heart feel all kinds of conflicting emotions. I felt jealous of Max for his monster friends and his adventure that his mom knows nothing about. I felt lonely in his room and scared for him on the boat and so thankful that, in the end, he doesn't have to miss dinner due to his travels. His dinner is waiting for him. And it's still hot.

When I was 6, I threatened to run away. This was the book I made sure was in my suitcase. I told my dad I was leaving. I think I thought I could go to where the wild things were. I was heading all the way (down the street) to Lake Merritt. By. Myself. I packed my book. I packed two of my plastic candy-colored records that could only be played on the wind-up Fisher Price record player and a t-shirt (at least two years too small for me) that had a picture of Cookie Monster and a recipe for chocolate chip cookies on it. I don't know how I remember all this, but I do. These were my things. The things I would need.

I didn't end up running away. I think my mom was at work but my dad managed to talk me out of it by telling me if I left, he would be "saddened." I measured that thought carefully and changed my mind. It would be too much for me to risk. I think he knew that, and he knew I wouldn't leave, but we hugged and he asked me not to go and I told him I wouldn't. I thought at the time he was giving me the choice, and I was making the hard choice not to go, though now I can only imagine that the fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants choices that must accompany first-time fatherhood and how to handle this must have weighed on him. He took an approach and it worked.

Later, I felt bad. I remember crying in my room. Crying at my lost adventure, but also crying at the thought of him "saddened." Not just "sad" which he would be in control of, but "sadd-ened" which would be totally my fault. I didn't understand (or even realize) the nuance then, but the weight of the word and the afternoon of conflicted and difficult revelations has stuck with me for about 30 years.

That book is tied to all that for me. And as I have read it to all the kids in my life and will read it to my own someday, I feel the weight of that story, of that boy, feeling alone in the world and wanting some control over his life and creating a place in his mind where that can happen. I feel the weight of his decision to return home and the wonderful care with which his mom has left his dinner waiting for him. This detail, only in the retrospect of growing up, is the most important one. Max was loved.

All that from a little 21 page book. Funny how those childhood stories stick with you. I am so looking forward to what Dave can do with this. I simply cannot wait.