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Where the Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak
Harper Collins
Reviewed by Amelia Bury

Never tell your mum you are going to eat her all up. Max does that in Maurice Sendak's 1963 classic, Where the Wild Things Are, and as punishment is sent to bed without supper.

Rewards came in 1964, with the story winning the Caldecott Prize for the Most Distinguished Picture Book of the Year. Sendak's illustrations perfectly convey his royally wild rumpus and even stand the no-text test in the centre pages.

Dressed in his white fox suit, with ears and bushy black tail, Max escapes from his room on a boat across oceans to where the wild things are. This book is a delight for children and adults alike because we all secretly want to visit Max's world dressed in pyjamas with feet, ears and tail. And the wild things, with their mismatched body parts, are only a wee bit scary. But at the end of any rumpus, there is no place like home – especially when you're hungry.