When Maurice Sendak released his masterpiece in 1963, people actually hated it. Librarians banned it. Child psychologists called it traumatizing. They thought the where the wild things are book pictures were too dark, too grotesque, and way too weird for kids who were supposed to be reading about "Dick and Jane." But here we are, decades later, and those cross-hatched monsters are basically the gold standard for children’s literature.
It’s about the cross-hatching. Seriously.
If you look closely at the original drawings, you’ll see thousands of tiny, hand-drawn lines. Sendak didn't use flat colors or soft watercolors to make things feel "safe." He used a technique that felt old-world and slightly dangerous. It’s dense. It’s heavy. It’s honest. Max, our protagonist, isn't some polite little boy; he’s a kid in a wolf suit having a total meltdown. And the pictures don't just show the story—they grow with it.
The Secret Geometry of Where the Wild Things Are Book Pictures
Have you ever noticed how the white space on the page disappears as Max gets angrier?
It’s a brilliant trick. When the book starts, the illustrations are small squares surrounded by a lot of white margin. Max is confined by his house, his mother’s rules, and his own skin. But as he sails away and the "wild rumpus" begins, the where the wild things are book pictures literally expand. They eat the white space. By the middle of the book, the drawings take up the entire page, then both pages, bleeding right off the edges.
The art is breathing.
When the rumpus ends and Max gets lonely, the pictures shrink back down. They retreat. It’s a visual representation of a child’s emotional state—how anger feels like it's taking over the whole world until, suddenly, you just want your dinner.
Sendak was a self-taught genius who obsessed over the "Old Masters." You can see the influence of guys like Albrecht Dürer in those fine lines. He wasn't drawing for children, not really. He was drawing the truth of childhood. He famously said that he didn't write for children, he wrote about "childhood." There’s a massive difference there. Most kids’ books try to sell a sanitized version of reality. Sendak’s pictures show the claws. They show the teeth.
Why the Monsters Look Like Sendak’s Relatives
The monsters aren't just random scary things. They have names, though they aren't in the book. Tzippy, Moishe, Aaron, Emile, and Bernard.
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They were based on his Jewish uncles and aunts.
When Sendak was a kid in Brooklyn, his relatives would come over on Sundays. They were poor immigrants who had escaped horrific things in Europe. They’d pinch his cheeks, tell him how much they wanted to "eat him up," and breathe their "terrible breath" on him. To a small, sensitive kid, these people were terrifying. They had huge noses, yellowed teeth, and mismatched clothes.
He didn't make them monsters to be mean. He made them monsters because that’s how he saw them. That’s why the where the wild things are book pictures feel so oddly human. The monsters have human feet. They have human eyes. They aren't dragons or aliens; they’re people. They’re "the Wild Things" because they represent the overwhelming, loud, messy world of adults that children are forced to navigate.
The Color Palette of a Dreamscape
The colors are weirdly muted. Have you noticed that?
Even in the 1960s, children’s books were usually bright and primary-colored. Sendak used tempura and ink, but he kept the tones earthy. Mossy greens, twilight blues, dusty yellows. It feels like a forest at 7:00 PM. It’s that specific time of day when shadows start to look like things they aren't.
This choice was intentional. The art needed to feel like a dream—or a hallucination brought on by hunger and rage. If the colors were too bright, the monsters would look like mascots. Instead, they look like statues that have come to life.
The Composition of the Wild Rumpus
The three spreads in the middle of the book have no words. Zero.
This was a radical move in 1963. Publishers thought parents would feel cheated. "Why am I paying for pages with no text?" But the where the wild things are book pictures do the heavy lifting. In those three spreads, we see the monsters and Max howling at the moon, swinging from trees, and parading around.
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The composition is chaotic but balanced. Sendak uses the "Rule of Thirds" without making it feel stiff. In one frame, Max is elevated, being carried by the beasts. It’s a power fantasy. Every kid wants to be the king of the things that scare them. The pictures allow the reader to project their own noise onto the page. You can almost hear the "Roar!" just by looking at the way the monsters' mouths are shaped.
Moving Beyond the Original 1963 Printing
If you go buy a copy today, it might look slightly different than the one your parents had. Over the years, the printing technology changed. In the early editions, the colors were often a bit muddier because of the limitations of 4-color offset printing.
In the late 80s and early 90s, Sendak actually went back and worked on the "restored" versions. He wanted the where the wild things are book pictures to match his original vision more closely. The colors became a bit more vibrant, and the fine lines of the cross-hatching became crisper. Some purists prefer the old, grainy versions because they feel more "vintage," but the newer prints show the incredible detail Sendak put into every single scale on a monster's back.
It's also worth noting the medium. Sendak used pen and ink, watercolor, and gouache. It’s a layered approach. It gives the images a sense of physical depth. You feel like you could reach into the page and touch the fur.
What People Miss About the "Private World"
There’s a small detail in the bedroom scenes that people often overlook. Look at the wall. As Max’s room turns into a forest, the wallpaper pattern literally turns into leaves. It’s not a jump cut; it’s a fade.
This is cinematic.
Sendak was a huge fan of movies and Mickey Mouse. He understood pacing. He understood how to guide the eye from the left side of the page to the right, pulling the reader deeper into the woods. The where the wild things are book pictures aren't just static images; they are a storyboard for a transformation.
How to Really "Read" the Illustrations
If you're looking at these pictures with a kid (or just by yourself because let's be honest, it's a great book), pay attention to the eyes.
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The monsters never look like they want to hurt Max. They look like they’re waiting for instructions. Their eyes are huge, rolling, and slightly vacant. This is what makes them "Wild Things" rather than "Evil Things." They are pure impulse. They are the physical manifestation of Max’s "inner beast."
When Max decides to go home, he smells "good things to eat." The pictures don't show the food. They show his face. The art shifts from the external world of monsters back to the internal world of the self.
- Look for the moon. It stays consistent. It tracks the time passing in the real world versus the "year and a day" Max spends traveling.
- Check the monster's feet. Many of them have human-like toes and hairy legs, reinforcing that "creepy uncle" vibe Sendak was going for.
- Watch the wolf suit. As the story progresses, Max’s hood stays up during his "wild" phases and comes down when he starts to feel human again.
Honestly, the best way to appreciate the where the wild things are book pictures is to stop trying to analyze them for a second and just feel them. The art is supposed to be visceral. It’s supposed to make you feel a little bit uneasy. That unease is the point. It’s the feeling of being a child in a world that is much bigger, louder, and weirder than you are.
The genius of Maurice Sendak wasn't that he could draw well. Lots of people can draw. His genius was that he remembered what it felt like to be five years old and furious. He put that fury into the ink.
If you want to dive deeper into the visual history, look for the 50th-anniversary editions or the "Art of Maurice Sendak" books. They show the preliminary sketches. In the early drafts, the Wild Things were actually "Wild Horses," but Sendak realized he couldn't draw horses very well. So he drew his relatives instead.
Sometimes, being "bad" at something—like drawing a horse—leads to the greatest art ever made.
To get the most out of these illustrations, try viewing them in a dark room with a single reading light. It heightens the contrast of the cross-hatching and makes the "forest" seem to grow out of the shadows of your own room. Notice how the colors shift from the cold blues of the sea to the warm oranges of the "still hot" supper at the very end. That final, un-illustrated page is the most important "picture" in the book, because it forces you to imagine the steam rising from the bowl.
Go back and look at the "Wild Rumpus" spreads again. Find the monster with the striped shirt. Find the one with the scales. Look at how they dance. It's not a scary dance; it's a celebration of being alive and being "wild." That's the legacy of these pictures—they gave kids permission to be messy.
Actionable Insights for Collectors and Educators
- Check your Edition: If you have an edition from before 1970, look at the saturation. Early prints have a distinct "flatness" that was corrected in later decades.
- Visual Literacy Exercise: If reading with children, ask them to point out where the "white space" goes. It’s a great way to teach how art tells a story without words.
- Study the Cross-Hatching: For aspiring artists, Sendak’s work is a masterclass in using line density to create shadow without using black paint. Use a magnifying glass to see the individual strokes.