Where the Wild Things Are (film) arrives in time to see him off. He starts to howl and Max howls back, then all the other Wild Things join in. Carol looks at K.W. and she smiles kindly at him. Returning home, Max is embraced by his mother, who gives him a bowl of soup, a piece of cake and a glass of milk and sits with him as he eats. He watches as she falls asleep. "Where the Wild Things Are" started its development life in the early 1980s, originally to be an animated feature by Disney that would have blended traditionally animated characters with computer-generated
Where the Wild Things Are "School Library Journal" sponsored a survey of readers which identified "Where the Wild Things Are" as top picture book. Elizabeth Bird, the NYPL librarian who conducted the survey, observed that there was little doubt it would be voted number one and highlighted its designation by one reader as a watershed, "ushering in the modern age of picture books". Another called it "perfectly crafted, perfectly illustrated ... simply the epitome of a picture book" and noted that Sendak "rises above the rest in part because he is subversive". President Barack Obama has read it aloud for children attending the White House