ONE of my daughter Sumåhi’s favorite books is “Where the Wild Things Are” by Maurice Sendak. She loved the artwork and the story and would sometimes request that we read it for several nights in a row. For those unfamiliar with the story, a young boy, Max, is causing so much havoc in the house that his mother chastises him for being “wild” and sends him to his room without supper. While there he undertakes a journey that takes him over a great sea to the land of the wild things. He becomes their leader and they dance and have a great time. Eventually Max grows tired of the freedom being a “wild one” gives him, and he decides to sail home. When he arrives in his room he finds his supper waiting for him; and it is still warm.

Part of the difficulty with reading books to my kids is the fact that I only speak to both of them in Chamorro. Even if I am reading to them a book like “Where the Wild Things Are,” which is in English, I have to translate it as I’m reading it. There are some Chamorro children’s books out there. There are several from Saipan that my kids enjoy such as “Kao SinaHao?” and “Despensa Amigu.” There are even less from Guam, even though some children’s books use a few Chamorro words here and there. They aren’t much help though when you’re trying to immerse kids in the language, since they reinforce the idea that “speaking Chamorro” means just speaking English, but using a few Chamorro words here and there.

When I would read “Where the Wild Things Are,” the one word that I would struggle the most with was “monster.” Given its centrality to the story, how best to convey it? Some would use the term “taotaomo’na” since that is the word most commonly associated with scary and menacing phenomena on Guam. But, for anyone who knows anything about Chamorro history and culture, it should be immediately apparent that the term is not appropriate. Taotaomo’na aren’t the zombies of Destination Truth and they are not the wild things of the story.

Do you instead give them a name from some aspect of them instead? For example, the monsters are behemoths, huge beasts, so would you call them “mandångkolusiha?” I thought about this, but since I already translated that to mean “the titans” as in “Clash of the Titans,” I felt I needed to go another route. Would you instead describe them from their sharp claws or sharp fangs?

Chamorros do have a couple words for monsters, but people are sometimes divided over when it is appropriate to use one instead of the other. Plantasma is something you should use for specters or apparitions. Birak is a more generic term. Bikulo’ is supposed to be a child’s term for a monster. Anufat is the name of an infamous taotaomo’na that I’ve heard some use in place of the term monster. There’s another long list of terms that emphasize how monsters have the ability to frighten or menace such as na’ma’a’nao.

Eventually I settled upon using “I manmachålek” which translates to “the wild ones.” When translating you always have so many options, as I’ve described in this article so far. The use of one term may alienate some readers or speakers. The use of another may upset some who aren’t familiar with it. But so long as you understand your choice and how you arrived at it, everything should be fine. I ended up choosing this one because it best fit what the author was trying to convey. Max runs away to the world of the wild things. What defines them is not their monstrous nature, but their wild nature, and Max is drawn to them out of a desire to become what his mother scolded him for being. Max eventually realizes that being a “wild one” isn’t enough in life and sets out to return home.

Maurice Sendak passed away earlier this year. In one of his last interviews, he discussed one aspect of his career that many people have missed. Even though Sendak was known as a great figure in children’s literature, he never saw himself as such. "I don’t write for children," he said. "I write, and somebody says, 'That’s for children.'" This is an interesting point and one of the reasons why I still continue to enjoy this book even though I haven’t been a child for a long time. For children, they may fixate on the monsters and the magical world that Max visits. For adults, the messages are much deeper. There are messages about family, home and the importance of finding someone who will love you no matter how wild and crazy you might be.