Where the Wild Things Are . . . and 5 more stories by Maurice Sendak (DVD)

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The four "Nutshell Kids" stories are considerably shorter than the other books, and are geared to pre-kindergarten learning. In "Alligators All Around," your preschooler watches an alligator dance and move onscreen while the alphabet is recited using mostly two-word verbals. H is "Having headaches," for example, while I is "Imitating Indians," and M is "Making Macaroni." Sendak can never just play it totally Disney, though, and so you get entries like P, "Pushing people," and no apologies. This is life, folks, and that's the way Sendak sees it and passes it along to children. "One Was Johnny" is a counting story, which has little Johnny beginning in a sparsely drawn, minimalist room, but then, as with "The Twelve Days of Christmas," as a number is added, those elements remain in the room until their number is called in reverse again and they exit, leaving little Johnny alone again. So it's basically a count to 10 and again in reverse story, with elements like "Four was the dog who slid home on a sled." "Pierre" is a moralistic tale that begins by telling you there's a moral at the end ("The moral of Pierre is CARE"). Pierre's response to just about anything is "I don't care," until that response to a lion who threatens to eat him lands him inside the lion's stomach. A little Sendak inappropriateness ensues when the parents return and find the lion in Pierre's bed, sick from overeating, and when they open the lion's mouth they hear "I don't care." PIERRE'S IN THERE the father shrieks, and whacks the lion over the head with a folding chair. Yep, a little violence there, followed by a trip to the vet, who turns the lion upside down and shakes little Pierre out of the lion's mouth. The fourth Nutshell story is an entertaining "Chicken Soup with Rice" that's a lesson in months of the year, with the bottom line that any month and any season is a good one to eat chicken soup with rice. There are some fun graphics, and the constant motion, narrative, and accrual of images will remind you of the second story. Too bad it's a little rough-looking.

Video:
"In the Night Kitchen" looks especially nice, with strong black levels and just the slightest touch of grain. As with the other DVDs in this series, the video quality is very good. Presented in 1.33:1 aspect ratio, the stories feature colors that aren't as primary-bright as most books or videos for preschoolers, but that's Sendak's palette. He prefers earthy colors, clearly. The roughest looking story is "Chicken Soup with Rice," which has considerably more grain (all the Nutshell stories have more grain and show more age than the two main stories), as well as some flickers of dirt and imperfections.

Audio:
The audio is a Dolby Digital 2.0, which delivers a clear, distortion-free soundtrack that has a pleasant-enough balance of bass and treble. No complaints here.

Extras:
Parents might want to preview the short feature "Getting to Know Maurice Sendak," because they may not want their kids hearing Sendak say how he didn't like school, hated having books read to him, and much preferred comic books . . . which is why, he says, he draws in a style that in many ways is reminiscent of comic books. As he talks about his Disney experience it becomes clear that he's got one foot in the Disney mindset and one foot in a much wilder place. No wonder he couldn't make it in Disney animation. But this is one great bonus feature for parents. Kids, meanwhile, will like a sheet of "Wild Thing" stickers. The only other extras are Spanish and French versions of "Where the Wild Things Are" and a read-along option for all of the stories.

Bottom Line:
Who knows whether the 2009 feature-length live-action version of "Where the Wild Things Are" will be suitable for children, since Spike Jonze is directing. But this version is the book itself, the real deal, along with the book-on-video that Sendak said was his favorite-"In the Night Kitchen." Those two are the strong entries, but if you have preschoolers, they might appreciate the teaching stories, and parents will certainly enjoy seeing Sendak in his element on the short bonus feature.

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