Dave Eggers - The Wild Things

For their clear and passionate readings of this book, thanks go to my wife Vendela and brother Toph, both of whom understand the Maxes of the world and thus boyhood, and thus childhood, and thus humanhood; my friends Michelle Quint and Tish Scola and Adrienne Mahar for early and astute reads of the manuscript; Nicholas Thomson, Onnesha Roychoudhuri, and Henry Jones for expert late-game proofing; Vince, Natalie, Russell, KK, Eric, Sonny, John, Ren, both Catherines, and all the other lunatic-genius makers of the film; all the editors and staff at McSweeney’s; Daniel and Michael and Nick and Roddy and Neil for leading the way and setting the (high) bar; Simon Prosser, Andrew Wylie, Sally Wilcox, and Deb Klein, who together championed this book at a crucial time; and Mac Barnett, a great young writer of books for young people. If you haven’t read his work, run somewhere and do that. Books for young people have a rich and I daresay limitless future — knock anyone who says otherwise into a ditch — and Mac has a central place within that limitless future. Don’t bet against him, or anyone like him.

Dave Eggers is the author of What Is the What , among other books. He is the editor of McSweeney’s, an independent publishing house in San Francisco, and is the cofounder of 826 National, a network of nonprofit writing and tutoring centers for youth with locations in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Boston, Ann Arbor, and Seattle. With his high school students he edits The Best American Nonrequired Reading , a yearly anthology, and with his brother Toph he cowrites the Haggis-on-Whey series of semi-informative books, which includes Giraffes? Giraffes!, Animals of the Ocean (in Particular the Giant Squid) , and Cold Fusion .

www.mcsweeneys.net

www.826national.org