Episode 10: Where the Wild Things Are — Max Gets Away With Everything

A kid gets sent to bed without dinner, throws the tantrum of the century, and somehow ends up sailing across an ocean, conquering an island of monsters, and getting crowned king — all before coming home to a hot meal waiting on the table like nothing happened. No apology. No chores. No consequences. This is the book they gave a Caldecott Medal to.

We cracked this one open expecting a cozy bedtime classic and instead spent an entire episode arguing about whether Max is a misunderstood dreamer or the tiniest, most successful tyrant in children's literature. Dave brought in an AI chatbot to defend the book's morals and watched it lose the argument in real time.

Other things we can't let go of:

• A full nautical inspection of Max's boat, which he named after himself, because of course he did, and which is rigged in a direction that defies basic sailing physics
• A full year alone at sea with zero food, which raises questions nobody in this book seems interested in answering — is it a fever dream? A concussion? Did his mom just knock him out with a shoe?
• Maurice Sendak's origin story: sickly Brooklyn kid, lifelong Mickey Mouse obsession, allegedly could not draw a horse to save his life, drew monsters instead
• The theory that the Wild Things are just his ugly immigrant relatives with better hair and worse manners
• Why this "demonic" little book caused a full-blown moral panic decades before moral panics were cool
• A very serious, mostly unresolved debate over how a seven-year-old apparently understands maritime boat registration better than actual sailors

Plus a two-book Sendak giveaway for our biggest fans, and a first look at next week's read, Clifford the Big Red Dog, which we are already bracing to somehow connect back to the Holocaust.

Is Max a genius, a menace, or just really good at getting away with it? Tune in and pick a side.