The Wild Things by Dave Eggers

 

Eggers imagines a full length story based around the wonderful childhood companion that was Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are.  Like many young boys, Max is imaginative, energetic and misunderstood by his teen sister and hard working mother, and after a confrontation with his mother's boyfriend runs away into the woods.  There he finds a boat on the lake shore and sails away 'in and out of days and nights' until he reaches the fantastic island where the Wild Things live, massive savage beasts that change their mind about eating him and instead crown him as their king.  But kingship and responsibility for these great sad creatures with their complicated relationships to each other becomes increasingly fraught.  Full of longing and a plea to remember what children are, and to let them be lost in their wild world.