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The night Max wore his wolf suit
and made mischief of one kind and another
his mother called him “wild thing!”
And Max said, “I’ll eat you up . . .”
so he was sent to bed without eating anything.
That very night in Max’s room a forest grew . . .
and grew . . .
and grew . . .
until his ceiling hung with vines and the walls became the world all around
and an ocean tumbled by with a private boat for Max
and he sailed off through night and day
and in and out of weeks
and almost over a year
to where the wild things are.
And when he came to the place where the wild things are,
they roared their terrible roars
and gnashed their terrible teeth
and rolled their terrible eyes
and showed their terrible claws
’til Max said, “Be still . . .”
and tamed them with the magic trick of staring into all their yellow eyes without blinking once,
and they were frightened and called him the most wild thing of all
and made him king of all wild things.
“And now,” cried Max, “let the wild rumpus start!”
“Now stop,” Max said . . . and sent the wild things off to bed without their supper.
And Max, the king of all wild things, was lonely and wanted to be where someone loved him best of all.
Then all around, from far away across the world, he smelled good things to eat,
so he gave up being king of where the wild things are.
But the wild things cried, “Oh, please don’t go. We’ll eat you up. We love you so.”
And Max said, “No.”
The wild things roared their terrible roars
and gnashed their terrible teeth
and rolled their terrible eyes
and showed their terrible claws,
but Max stepped into his private boat and waved good-bye
and sailed back over a year
and in and out of weeks
and through a day
and into the night of his very own room,
where he found his supper waiting for him, and it was still hot.