Books on Screen: Where the Wild Things Are

It’s Z-Dad and the Z-Kids from Bookie Woogie signing in! Thanks so much to 5 Minutes For Books for letting us share our thoughts on the “Where the Wild Things Are” movie. For our review of the original picture book, you’re welcome to peek here. The following discussion picks up where that prior review leaves off…

Dad:  Alright, what movie did we just see?
Kids:  “Where the Wild Things Are!”
Lily (age 6):  With a wild rumpus!
Dad:  How did you like it?
Isaac (age 11):  It was good.
Dad:  You didn’t sound very excited there, boy.
Isaac:  Woohoo! It was good!
Gracie (age 9):  I love it!
Dad:  The book takes just two minutes to read. Was the movie two minutes long as well?
Gracie:  The movie was three minutes.
Dad:  So they added an extra minute?
Gracie:  Ha ha ha!
Isaac:  No, it was hours longer.
Gracie:  There is good news and bad news. The bad news is that my favorite character from the book — the monster that I named “I-Walked-Into-A-Tree–Ouch” — he was not in the movie. The good news is that since he wasn’t in the movie, they didn’t give him a different name. So I can keep his name however I like. And I’m keeping his name “I-Walked-Into-A-Tree–Ouch.”
Isaac:  If you read the book, in one of the pages you see a monster that looks like he’s walking straight into a tree.
Gracie:  The page where they are howling at the moon…
Isaac:  He’s the monster on the right-hand side.
Dad:  So what things were the same in both the book and the movie?
Isaac:  Max.
Gracie:  The private boat.
Isaac:  Going across the water. The monsters. Max becoming the king.
Gracie:  The wild rumpus.
Isaac:  The book starts with Max chasing a dog with a fork.
Gracie:  And the movie starts with him chasing the dog with a fork.
Dad:  That was cool.
Gracie:  And “Don’t go… I’ll eat you up, I love you so.”
Dad:  So what were some things that were different? Either things from the book that they left out, or new things that they added…
Isaac:  Max ran away instead of getting sent to his room.
Gracie:  There was no “I-Walked-Into-A-Tree–Ouch.”
Isaac:  There was no sea dragon.
Dad:  Yeah, I was disappointed about that.
Isaac:  The fort was new. There wasn’t a fort in the book.
Gracie:  Yeah, they built the coolest fort out of sticks! It was shaped like a ball, and it was so sweet. So sweet!
Lily:  I know something about the movie. When Max got to where the wild things are, stuff happened that was the same as in his life. You know how the kids destroyed Max’s igloo? Well, Max helped to destroy the monsters’ old homes.
Isaac:  Lily, that’s the most you ever said in a review at one time!
Dad:  I know… and what an awesome observation. Lily figured that out all on her own.
Isaac:  Good job Lily!
Dad:  So, some things from Max’s world are mirrored in the Wild Things’ world. Does anyone remember from one of our other reviews what that’s called?
Lily:  Parallelogram?
Dad:  Close! Parallel. What other parallels were there?
Gracie:  Max told his mom, “I’ll eat you up!” and the monsters said, “We’ll eat you up.”
Isaac:  No one would listen to the goat guy. Same for Max.
Gracie:  First, the mom had a new friend and Max didn’t like it so he yelled, Rawr! And later one monster didn’t like that another monster had new friends.
Dad:  What did you guys think of the creatures?
Isaac:  They were cool. Which was your favorite?
Dad:  I love that big buffalo guy.
Isaac:  My favorite is the goat dude. He’s awesome.
Gracie:  My favorite guy was “I-Walked-Into-A-Tree–Ouch”
Dad:  He wasn’t even in the movie!
Gracie:  Maybe he was invisible! And he walked into every tree in the forest.
Isaac:  I liked the buffalo monster too, Dad.
Elijah (age 4): (walking in on the conversation)  There was a buffalo? How come you got to see all the cool things?!
Dad:  Do you think we should have taken Elijah, or would it have been too scary for him?
Gracie:  Elijah, do you get scared of yelling monsters?
Elijah:  No way! I don’t, Grace.
Dad:  How about you three? Were there any parts that made you scared or nervous? Lily climbed onto my lap at one point.
Gracie:  What happened?
Dad:  It was when one of the monsters was chasing Max through the forest to eat him.
Lily:  My chair was just squeaky and I didn’t want it making noise…
Dad:  Suuuure……
Lily:  I wasn’t scared.
Dad:  Is there anything the moms and dads reading this should know about?
Lily:  I know, I know. If your kids are scared of monsters putting people in their mouth and then spitting them out, do not come to this movie theater.
Dad:  So there were some potentially scary parts. It was a pretty funny movie too.
Lily:  The part where the bird monster had ************ was SO funny!
Dad:  Well we don’t want to give it away!
Lily:  Oh! Erase that! Forget what I said! Blah blah blah blah.
Dad:  The movie was also pretty sad. Gracie, you said you cried?
Gracie:  What. I’m sensitive.
Dad:  How many times did you say you cried? Seven?
Gracie:  Not seven. Several. I did say “seven.” But apparently “several” is different from “seven.”
Dad:  Did Max learn any lessons in the movie?
Isaac:  Not to call himself a king.
Gracie:  He also learned not to stand on a table and say “Feed me, woman.”
Dad:  That is a fine lesson to learn indeed.

You can find weekly book reviews by Isaac, Grace, and Lily at their blog Bookie Woogie. You can see samples of their art on their other blog Chicken Nugget Lemon Tooty.