Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
Published 1963 · 338 words · Children's Literature, Fantasy, Literary Fiction
How hard is Where the Wild Things Are to read?
Where the Wild Things Are scores 18 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it relatively accessible. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 100 out of 100
- Extremely simple vocabulary. 338 words total.
- Sentence structure: 100 out of 100
- Abstraction: 12 out of 100
- Concrete fantasy. The abstraction is in the emotional architecture.
- Information density: 35 out of 100
- Astonishing compression. Every word and image carries meaning.
- Narrative indirection: 15 out of 100
- Direct linear journey: anger, fantasy, return. No tricks.
- Symbolic density: 55 out of 100
- The wild things, the ocean, the wolf suit, and the hot supper are richly symbolic.
- Ironic distance: 50 out of 100
- Completely sincere. Max's emotions are taken at full value.
- Resolution withholding: 50 out of 100
- Complete emotional resolution. The supper is still hot.
- Structural complexity: 100 out of 100
- Three-part structure: departure, rumpus, return. Elegant simplicity.
How Where the Wild Things Are is regarded
Where the Wild Things Are holds a literary regard score of 70 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.