Today the movie version of Maurice Sendak’s 1963 children’s picture book, “Where the Wild Things Are” opens in theaters.

When the book was first published, many people complained that it was too scary. Sendak’s response was simple, he said just don’t read it.

Sometimes, whether you read a book or watch a movie is not a choice you have. Sometimes, we cannot just walk away from our monsters by not seeing a movie, not reading a book or by not looking under our bed.

Sometimes we need to deal with our monsters. As Max did, we need to tame our monsters by staring directly into their yellow eyes and not flinching.

We too are capable of taming our monsters and becoming king of our own Wild Things.

Joel T Nowak MA, MSW