I learned to read through fear and intimidation. I would ask her questions like "Do you think I will have my monsters get you if you don't make me supper?" And she'd smile, and say "Go to bed, Nathan." Spooky shit, I'm telling you. But I asked her to read me Where The Wild Things Are again that night. All day long I pretended nothing was different. I made a nest with a giant teddy bear and two pillows and didn't come out until the next morning, when I heard my mom coming down the hall. Think I slept that night? No, I hid out under my bed with a plastic baseball bat, a water gun and flashlight, hoping to God that if this was the night it all went wrong, I had the courage to look those monsters in the eye and pretend I wasn't wetting myself. Read me a story about my bedroom becoming a forest inhabited by monsters, then put me to bed. I thought, "This woman aims to do me harm." Yes, please, mother. Then he gets hungry and goes home, where his mother, no doubt terrified of his new army of foreign creatures, has left his food for him, still warm. So Max has a ball with this gang he's conquered and converted, and they howl at the moon and hop through trees. I'm a damn toddler, and my mom is reading me a book about a sociopath. And promptly subjugates everyone he sees. So naturally he gets in a boat and sails off to the other side of the world, to where all these "wild things" are. Regardless, a fucking forest grows in the kids bedroom. Though the bit about chasing the dog with the fork does imply a delusional state. And no, no chemicals have been ingested anywhere in the story. Then a forest starts to grow in Max's bedroom.
Already, this story should start creeping you out. His mother, a master of irony, then puts him to bed with no dinner. Here's the gist of the plot: A little boy named Max dresses up in a wolf costume, plays with a hammer, chases his dog with a fork, then threatens to cannibalize his mother. It is one of the earliest books I vividly remember reading aloud to myself, and I remember the first time my mother read it to me before she put me to bed.
I have no doubt that this book damaged me, psychologically, as a small child.
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