Really? The movie trailer kinda felt like everything I imagined beyond the book as a kid.
What is the significance of this movie? Why do you think so many children and adults are drawn to it?
Well, I can totally relate to you loving the book so much that you imagined a wider story and the world of the story in more depth than is actually in the book. I am passionate about books of all sorts and I have done that with so many favourite books, and especially as a child. So I can imagine that if I had loved the book, the movie might seem to me to capture the spirit very nicely, or the wider story, or whatever. I mean, it wouldn’t be too much a movie if the kid just went and had a wild rumpus with the Wild Things, the end…it would last about ten minutes…
I certainly don’t dislike the book, I just never loved it. When it’s a book which is widely popular and which I also adore (like Lord of the Rings, let’s say) I never have a hard time understanding why so many people also adore it
But I have to say that although I knew this was considered a great classic of picture books, I never knew there were so many people who were so passionately fond of it. And I guess it does bode well for the “spirit” of the book that most of them seem excited, rather than put off, by the trailer etc.
I always have mixed feelings about movies of great books, too. People seem to elevate the movies way above the books, somehow, even if the movie's whole existence relies on the excellence of the book (regardless of how well the movie turns out.) It always seems as though there are loads of people who have barely heard of the book who get terribly excited about the movie, one way or another. This always prompts me to start dark mutterings like "get a life! read more books!"
For those of you who love this book, did you also have a lot of other books around as a kid? Including lots of other picture books? Or did you just have a few, including this one?
Although everyone in my family is obsessed with books, and I started reading when I was three (and was very soon reading way, way ahead of my age...though I loved picture books at the normal age for them too), I/we didn't necessarily love all the "childhood favourites." Some, yes, but not all. I never got into Dr Seuss either.