Max Costume | Rowe, Massachusetts

January 2, 2019

After leaving New York, the Max costume traveled north to a town called Rowe, in the upper reaches of Massachusetts. These kids know about weather and how ferocious and brave one has to be in the middle of winter, as well as how important hot soup is during those months of frigid austerity. We hope they're even more prepared for it this year after scampering about in the Max costume for a bit. Thank you Rowe Elementary School, for indulging your feral selves. The costume is now on its way to Chicago, where its warmth will be much appreciated, we must assume. -D.E.

Max Costume | New York City, NY

Kitania here, to give an update on the Max costume from Where the Wild Things Are. Its most recent stop was Dos Puentes Elementary School in Washington Heights, NYC. You can find hot soup there for sure, as well as places where you feel like you know everyone, but don't. There are lonely places, too. There are the sorts of places that inspire the emotions pictured here, from pure commotion to cautious confidence. Thank you everyone at Dos Puentes. The costume is already back in his shipping container — someday we will show you that, too! It is not at all interesting, but still — and the next stop is Rowe, MA.

Max Costume | Sikeston, Missouri

The first stop on the Wild Things Costume National/Possibly International Tour was Lee Hunter Elementary in Sikeston, Missouri. The kids at Lee Hunter got to try it on for Halloween, and presumably they felt slightly more feral than usual. Here we see Logan striking a familiar pose, demanding hot soup and not paté. After a few days with the costume, the good people at Lee Hunter just today shipped it off to New York City. Next week, we’ll have updates about the costume’s adventures there. Pictures of the costume riding the F line (my old train) will be appreciated but not required. -D.E.

Max Costume Update

It’s been impossible to choose between all the equally worthy entrants into this weird Wild Things costume contest, so we will be doing something appropriately weird and completely impractical. The Wild Things costume will spend this schoolyear bouncing around from one classroom to another, so everyone who entered will get to enjoy it for a week. (Doing calendar-math on napkin, finding it within the realm of possible.) Still, this is of course an insane plan, but if I know elementary schoolteachers, they can pull this off without breaking a sweat. So the first school — Lee Hunter Elementary in Sikeston, Missouri — will get it next week. When you get it, my Lee Hunter friends, take some photos and post them, and we’ll link to each other — I have no idea how this works — and then you’ll send it to the next school. (Don’t worry — we’ll tell you where.) In this way, we’ll have a sort of year-long chain-letter, albeit one containing dirty white fur and broken whiskers. This will be fun. Thank you to everyone who entered. We’ll do it next year, providing the costume is intact and Instagram still exists. -D.E.

Max Costume from Where the Wild Things Are

I have one of the original Max furry costumes used in Where the Wild Things Are, and periodically I’ve loaned it out to kids and classrooms for Halloween. This year I’m opening it up to any fourth-grade classroom in the U.S. Comment below, and my colleague Amanda Uhle will randomly pick a winner on Oct 17. We’ll send you the costume, on loan till after Halloween. We ask that you return it with at least two student-written haikus about feral-ness and/or hot soup. Note that it is already intentionally dirty. When you receive a filthy, itchy costume with bent whiskers and missing feet, it is all as intended.
-D.E.