Where the Wild Things Are Pols of "Time" magazine wrote that "[w]hat makes Sendak's book so compelling is its grounding effect: Max has a tantrum and in a flight of fancy visits his wild side, but he is pulled back by a belief in parental love to a supper 'still hot,' balancing the seesaw of fear and comfort." "New York Times" film critic Manohla Dargis noted that "there are different ways to read the wild things, through a Freudian or colonialist prism, and probably as many ways to ruin this delicate story of a solitary child liberated by his imagination." In Selma G. Lanes's book
Where the Wild Things Are Easter Egg Roll in multiple years. Despite the book's popularity, Sendak refused to produce a sequel; four months before his death in 2012, he told comedian Stephen Colbert that one would be "the most boring idea imaginable". An animated short based on the book, which had taken five years to complete, was released in 1973, directed by Gene Deitch and produced at Krátký film, Prague, for Weston Woods Studios. Two versions were released: the original 1973 version, with narration by Allen Swift and a musique concrète score composed by Deitch himself; and an updated version in 1988 with new music