using "the magic trick of staring into all their yellow eyes without blinking once." Professor Liam Heneghan describes Max’s dream as one of mastering the wild, from which he also learns to master his “inner tumult”. It sets forth the unrestrained rowdiness of the Wild Things and enlightens the reader to the idea that one cannot live in the wild forever: “In this notion of wilderness, there is a heightened reminder that after our fill of wilderness, one can, or perhaps even should, return, replenished, to the comforts of home." Heneghan concludes, “The overarching thought is an old one: a human engages with Wild Things and in so doing comes into accord with the world and gains a measure of self-mastery." Reception According to Sendak the book was banned in libraries and received negative reviews at first. It took about two years for librarians and teachers to realize that children were flocking to the book and for critics to relax their views. Since then, it has received high critical acclaim. Francis Spufford suggests that the book is "one of the very few picture books to make an entirely deliberate and beautiful use of the psychoanalytic story of anger". New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis noted that "there are different ways to read the wild things, through a Freudian or colonialist prism, and probably as many ways to ruin this delicate story of a solitary child liberated by his imagination." Based on a 2007 online poll, the National Education Association listed the book as one of its "Teachers' Top 100 Books for Children". Five years later School Library Journal sponsored a survey of readers which identified Where the Wild Things Are as a top picture book. Elizabeth Bird, the librarian from the New York Public Library who conducted the survey, observed that there was little doubt that it would be voted number one and highlighted its designation by one reader as a watershed, "ushering in the modern age of picture books". Another critic called it "perfectly crafted, perfectly illustrated ... simply the epitome of a picture book" and noted that Sendak "rises above the rest in part because he is subversive". President Barack Obama read it aloud for children who were attending the White House Easter Egg Roll in multiple years. New York Times writer Bruce Handy brought up the idea that "as a child myself, without benefit of personal