The Wild Things by Dave Eggers
This novel is a tale inspired by the Maurice Sendak picture book Where the Wild Things Are. Max is eight and lives in the suburbs with his mother and his older sister, His mother's boyfriend Gary sometimes stays over too. He visits his dad in the city on weekends sometimes.
As the book begins Max feels left out and builds a snow fort where he launches a snowball attack against his sister and her friends. When they fight back, and then leave, he feels even more left out and initiates more bad behaviour against his sister.
Max's acting out frustrates both his sister and mother and when an angry remark from his mother sends him running, his flight leads to a small sailboat, a trip across the water, and an island where Max encounters a number of strange wild things and engages in a variety of destructive and wild behaviour.
The story of a small boy and his frustrations with his life, and how he exhibits that frustration through his behaviour is one we can see as all too real. It is only on the island where Max sees the consequences of his behaviour and has to deal with them himself that he grows up enough to see how his acts in real life affect his family.
An interesting take on a classic tale.
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