Where the Wild Things Are

They’re in the library, and they’re waiting, some not so patiently, to come out and play. There are cows that insist on jumping and dancing on a chicken’s chair because they are ready to have some fun.

There’s a wolf who continues to chase after pigs who’ve just built houses (granted, some of them haphazardly). We made cupcakes for him to encourage him to eat something else.

There are wild things disguised as princesses, ready to flip the definition on its head.

And there are the ones that don’t need saving despite how determined the prince is to save us. We just decided to build a new place for her so maybe the prince would find something else to do (the only requirement for the builders was they had to rhyme a few words in order to use the Legos).

Some of the wild things are broken, and need to be rebuilt, or redeemed, or just given another chance and the only way to do that is by sharing their story with little people who are eager to make sense of what’s broken.

There are wild mittens too, ready to be lost and found again, but not before going on a new adventure.

There are footballs disguising themselves as Object Poems – wild, indeed.

Those who enter the library usually know what to do with these wild things. They know what’s wild comes in a variety of shapes and sizes.

We know how to take care of these things that haunt hearts and capture souls and who, despite our fear, we want to dance with.

They’re mostly shelved away now, resting for when they’re yanked from shelves, fought over, and hugged because they’re loved so. Some of them have been wrapped in newspaper to be taken with the students who head on to 2nd grade and a new school. I think it’s necessary and good to take along something wild when beginning a new adventure.

Because I think the wild things help us imagine who we might become, and where we want to go.

Like Cassie, in Faith Ringgold’s  Tar Beach, who flies over the George Washington Bridge that her father helped to build. She flies over the Union Building where, because of his skin color her father couldn’t be a member of. Cassie flies over these things and claims them for herself and her father. She claims the ice-cream shop too, so she can have it for dessert every night.

“Where would you fly if you could go anywhere?” I asked the 5, 6, and 7 year olds who’ve come each week to spend time with the wild things.

One girl drew the Eiffel Tower, along with a bridge, “so it’s easier to climb,” she told me.

“I think you’ll be an architect someday,” I told her, and another girl listening to us said, “I think that word is for boys.”

“No, no! It’s not,” said the little girl as she drew the finishing touches to her picture. “All the words are for everyone.”

And now, I am at my desk, looking at the books to be barcoded, labeled, and shelved when the library door slams, continually, against the wall. It is a wild thing, and I am Max, standing before what it is I’ve dreamed up, unsure of whether I can or should commence the wild rumpus, but thinking that perhaps, this is exactly what a library is for.

“What’s up?” I say to him. His fists are clenched, and he’s scowling.

“I ran away from my class and now I’m banging on your door.”

“I see that,” I tell him as I type an email to his teacher letting her know he is here, and he can stay if it’s OK with her.

He stops banging on the door and steps forward so he’s right in front of my desk, hands still clenched, face still scowling.

“I seen that movie,” he says, pointing to Max and the Wild Things. “It’s scary.”

“It is scary,” I say. “But I like it.”

“You like it even though it’s scary?”

“I like the Wild Things,” I tell him.

He studies me, then looks at the poster.

“Do you know it’s a book?” I ask him.

“This one?” he asks. “It’s in here?”

“It is.”

“Is it scary?”

“It is,” I say, “but we could read it together.” It might not be so scary, I think, if we read it together.

He nods, and I offer him my hand and together we walk over to the “S” section and find Where the Wild Things Are. We sit at a table and I read, but he does the narrating:

He’s so bad! He’s gonna hurt his dog and his mama. That’s why he got sent to his room. Ooooo! What’s happening now? Where’s his room going? Oooo! He on the water now! What’s that thing coming’ out of the water? Look, look, he’s scared. Oh, but look now, he’s playing with them. They must be friendly. Why are they asleep? Why’s he sad now? Where’s he going now? He goin’ home? To his mama? Look, look, she left him his dinner. He doesn’t even have to go downstairs and get it. Where’s his mama, though? Do you think she’s home? Do you think she’s behind the door? Because sometimes mamas leave.

I wonder then, what it is about this story that’s scary for him.

“Sometimes they leave,” I repeat to him. “But sometimes they come back,” I say and it sounds like a question.

“Sometimes,” he says.

He stays in the library for over an hour playing with the stuffed animals, coloring with markers, and talking to me the whole time while I shelve books. When it’s time for him to go, he asks if he can come back again.  “Sometimes, I need a break,” he explains.

I tell him yes, he can come back.

I wish I can promise him more, but all I can offer is a library that he is always welcome in, where wild things both real and imagined wait to see what it is he will do with what he is faced with.