Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, New York: Harper & Row, 1963,  48 pp.: In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak, New York: Harper & Row, 1970,  48 pp. Outside, Over There by Maurice Sendak, New York:  HarperCollins, 1981,  40 pp.

Childhood is a strange time. Bit by bit or in sudden swells we come into the world — a confusing world — full of unbelievable wonders, a multitude of rules, and the whims and complexities of those around us. In this commotion, we learn to know and to manage the “inside self” — full of intense feelings, cognitive conclusions, a body that is all ours yet incredibly vulnerable, and a place for our wishes, dreams, loves, and losses.

While those of us in the psychoanalytic community accept the confusion and struggle of childhood as a matter of course, there are few children's books that open a window for children to see into their internal reality. Maurice Sendak's ability to provide this view makes for a unique voice in children's literature. This review of his “trilogy” — Where the Wild Things Are, In the Night Kitchen, and Outside, Over There — explores some of the psychoanalytical aspects of childhood represented in the three stories that exemplify the developmental theories of D.W. Winnicott, the relational ideas of Jessica Benjamin and Margaret Little, and the theories of thinking of Wilfred Bion.

Winnicott (/1965b) proposed that the child, vitally attached