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Little Voices, Big Ideas: Where The Wild Things Are

Maurice Sendak
/
Harper & Row

Maurice Sendak’s classic children’s book, Where the Wild Things Are, takes readers on an extraordinary journey into the imagination of the wildest thing of all--the young and precocious Max.

Credit Sarah Debacher / Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities
/
Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities
Sarah Debacher, center, with her two sons, Charlie and Robin.

  Banished to his bedroom for bad behavior, Max sails across weeks and over a year to the land of the wild things, a bunch of misbehaving creatures who want nothing more than to rumpus till they can rumps no more. But when the bandying about is over, Max discovers he misses his home, and the very person who banished him in the first place: his mother.

In this episode, we explore what makes this tale so endearing--and enduring--and why Where the Wild Things Are allows parents and children to have tame talks about the pain of punishment, and the healing power of the imagination.

Host Sarah Debacher sits down with her son, Robin, to discuss this modern classic.

This podcast is made possible with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and is a partnership project of PRIME TIME Family Reading, the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, WWNO New Orleans, and WRKF Baton Rouge.