Last night, not unlike many other nights, I read Where the Wild Things Are with my daughter, Lily-James, as she cozied into bed.

However this time, once we got to the end, I told her: “Tomorrow, I’m going to where the wild things are. Would you like to come with me?” Her face lit up. With a wild fire in her eyes, she screamed, “YES!” Then, remembering she’s supposed to be going to sleep, she whispered again, “yes.” Needless to say, morning couldn’t come sooner.

I myself never read Where the Wild Things Are as a child. But soon after introducing it to Lily , who is now three and a half, the book became a staple in our bedtime story rotation. The main character, Max, enamored Lily, who wanted to tame such beastly creatures herself. When previews for Spike Jonze’s film adaptation came out, she pleaded to watch them over and over on YouTube and sang along to the bits of Arcade Fire’s “Wake Up” that are featured therein. Since the film’s release, Lily has spent many days tromping around the house with a teetering toy frying pan lid atop her head as a crown and a makeshift scepter in hand, shouting, “Let the wild rumpus start!” Other days, she transforms into a Wild Thing, roaming high over couch cushion mountains and grazing hardwood plains. She just can’t get enough.

So of course, I was delighted to learn of the Contemporary Art Center’s exhibit, Where the Wild Things Are: Maurice Sendak In His Own Words and Pictures. And Lily was thrilled by the idea of going to an art show and seeing all her favorite wild things.

Awakening today wide-eyed and eager, Lily went through the morning rituals absentmindedly and spoke of nothing but Wild Things. “We can see a painting of Carol, your favorite one!” Lily told me. “And KW, Daddy’s favorite–we can see her, too. But I just want to see the bull!” A car ride the length of an Arcade Fire album and about a dozen “Are we there yet?”s later, we finally found ourselves standing in front of the exhibition’s glass doors, staring straight into Carol’s terrible yellow eyes.

Inside, Lily immediately broke free of self-constraint with overlapping Banshee shrieks and shrill, hysterical laughter. Iconic images from Sendak’s books hung gigantic all around us on wall-sized prints. Cut-outs of main characters from each book stood at a child’s height. I spied a few lecterns with built-in three-ring binders offering large print copies of some of Sendak’s classics on spill- and tear-proof pages. As a parent, let me just say that this was an ingenious move.

Lily’s first adventure was climbing into the wooden boat from Where the Wild Things Are, complete with the name “Max” etched into the hull. She took the helm with Jason and me in tow, and didn’t have to stretch her imagination too far to steer us to where the wild things are; a row of hooks providing kid-sized Wild Thing costumes beside a mirror hidden in a gnarly tree.

Lily in a vat of "chicken soup with rice."

Next was a giant slide that pours into a bowl of “chicken soup with rice,” from the book of the same name; the first of four volumes in Sendak’s The Nutshell Library. Lily proclaimed, “You better look out below!” before shooting down into a pit of foam rice, carrot pillows, and rubber chickens. This was the least expected and most hilarious installation that I have ever seen in an art gallery! Lily climbed up and slid down each time as if it were the first, to the tunes of Carole King in the animated musical Really Rosie playing on a television.

We were afforded a much-needed chance to catch our breaths in the next part of the exhibit, where some photographs and drawings were displayed. Monochromatic images from In Grandpa’s House and Dear Mili led us to a sound booth modeled after Sendak’s creative environment. But glimpsing a kitchen play area in her peripherals, Lily dismounted the booth bench with a quickness.

In the Night Kitchen was our last stop through Maurice Sendak’s works, and it was a strange one. Lily slipped on a baker’s apron and got busy rummaging through the cookware while Jason and I flipped through the the book, which I now regard as quintessential of Sendak’s style. Like Where the Wild Things Are, it portrays a dream world through the eyes of a child. The artwork is beautifully done in a tight range of highly saturated tones and the characters are drawn just as fancifully. The story, however, may be just as iffy to parents as Wild Things. A little boy named Mickey is stirred from sleep and falls, suddenly nude, into a mixing bowl in an underworld where fat, Hitler-stached bakers try to cook him in a “Mickey oven.” Of course, to Lily it’s just be another story of plight and a happy ending, and that’s what really matters. So Jason and I just shrugged and helped Lily have some fun. We whisked plastic eggs and a splash of imaginary milk in a big metal bowl, ladled the mixture into a muffin pan, and put it in the Lily oven; but in the end, we simply shared some plastic buns and breads, as well as a wonderful afternoon.

Lily sailing to where the wild things are.

I’m sure I’ll be taking Lily back to the Wild Things exhibit again soon. One crucial thing I appreciated was that there was so much open space in the gallery. Nothing exacerbates the dreaded temper tantrum like crowdedness. It was refreshing to take her to a gallery I myself wanted to see without worrying that she might destroy something. Every parent knows that there’s a definite difference between a children’s event and a child-friendly event, and I commend the CAC for hosting one of the latter. Adults can read placards and peruse the cases of Sendak’s handwritten manuscripts, pages of notes, and original pen and ink sketches at ease while the children incite a rumpus.

Of course, the prominent point of the exhibit is to expose kids to literature through something fun, and that’s brilliant to me. There are few underhanded pleasures with greater outcomes than secretly teaching and enriching your kids. And considering that Lily decidedly informed me as we left that we “need to go to the bookstore and buy the book with the chicken soup,” I’d say the goal was accomplished.

“Where the Wild Things Are: Maurice Sendak in His Own Words and Pictures” continues at CAC through May 23.