Is 'Where the Wild Things Are' Really Getting Banned From Some Schools?

If you read Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak growing up, you're likely aware that it's about a young boy who is sent to bed without dinner. After arriving in his bedroom, though, he is transported to a magical land filled with fantastical creatures, and once there, he is declared king of this new world.

It's a beautifully illustrated book that became a widely acclaimed movie, and now, some are wondering why it was banned from some schools. Here's what we know.

For the most part, the bans targeting books in schools have been associated with books that feature explicitly sexual content, in particular, books about being LGBTQ+. Where the Wild Things Are is a great book, but it's not really about those things. Nonetheless, though, the book has been banned and challenged in schools across the country, leaving everyone who read the book as a child confused.

Although it's unclear how many modern-day schools have chosen to ban the book, it's true that Where the Wild Things Are has a long history of being censored, per Pen America.

In fact, much of that censorship happened shortly after the book was published, when many adults, particularly in the South, raised objections to it. Many found the book too dark and even suggested that it promoted themes of withcraft in order to justify banning it.

"What [Sendak] failed to understand is the incredible fear it evokes in the child to be sent to bed without supper, and this by the first and foremost giver of food and security — his mother," prominent psychologist Bruno Bettelheim wrote at the time in Ladies' Home Journal, via Pen America.

The suggestion seems to have been that Max's thoughts were too dark to expose to children, as if children don't ever have those thoughts themselves.

By modern standards, Where the Wild Things Are feels like a remarkably tame book, and that's because it is. In spite of its fantastical world and its moody main character, it's a book that generations of kids have grown up with without coming to any sort of harm.

It's worth considering, though, that many of the books that are being banned today are likely just as harmless as Where the Wild Things Are.

Books are designed to offer a window into another world, but just as importantly, they tell us stories so that we can better understand ourselves and our place in everything around us. There are genuinely controversial works of fiction, and there should be. Those books challenge us and push us to think in different ways.

I haven't read every book that has been banned over the past few years, but it seems safe to say that many of these books are not as radical as their detractors would have you believe. Many of them are probably more like Where the Wild Things Are. They might be a little different, but those differences are part of what attracts a whole new group of kids to them, kids who see some aspect of their lives reflected in the pages.