However, Eggers did not choose to be part of the 'Where the Wild Things Are' project, he was picked, twice. First he was approached by Spike Jonze who, having decided to make his favourite childhood picture book into a film needed help with the scree
nplay.
In 2003 Eggers and Jonze worked on the script for the book which consists of a few short sentences and ended up writing too much material. This is when the creator of the legendary book, Maurice Sendak, stepped in and asked Dave Eggers to turn the script into a novel. The result is what Eggers describes as three versions of the main character, a little boy called Max.
There is the Maurice Sendak's original Max. Then the Spike Jonze Max, who is featured in the film, and the Max from 'The Wild Things' novel who is a mixture of the first two little boys with a hint of the child in Dave Eggers.
'Where the Wild Things Are' picture' book stands out against the large backdrop of children's illustrated novels because it is not afraid to make the infant readers afraid. Anyone who read the book as a child will remember the mixture of excitement and fear as they turned each page and any book which stirs such emotions is bound to be difficult to forget.
It can be frustrating and, at times, even infuriating when you are trying to get attentions as a child. This is how Max feels in a house where his sister has become too old to play with him and his Mum is too busy with a new boyfriend to notice that any bold things that Max does aren't really his fault.
Max decides he just isn't wanted in a house that he may have caused permanent damage to when he soaked an upstairs room with buckets of water during a fit of anger. So he runs away and Gary, his Mum's new boyfriend, is too slow to catch him. After finding a boat in the forest he sails for days and days until he reaches an island where the wild things are.
The original book is used as the marker for the beginning, middle and end. The main body of the picture book is 'the wild rumpus' Max orders the wild things to take part in and what follows in a series of beautiful pictures of the so-called rumpus.
In 'The Wild Things' these activities are described in magnificent, and almost poetic, detail and include a gymnastic display, a screaming match, a parade, a war and the building of a fort, all of which don't go to plan.
While highly entertaining and still capturing the raw beauty of its original, this novel seems to drag in places as if you are actually reading something for a younger generation. The activities on the island just go on for too long and emotions such as fear or excitement are replaced with weariness. Although 'The Wild Things' can't stand up to something similar like 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time' it definitely isn't far off.
'The Wild Things' by Dave Eggers is out now in paperback
'Where the Wild Things Are' the motion picture, is to be released on December 11.
