Most parents and children know Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are, but the prolific author and illustrator produced dozens of books that are worthy of attention. One notable volume is Outside Over There, which at least in part inspired the classic Jim Henson film Labyrinth.

Ida, idly playing her horn with her father at sea and her mother sitting in her garden, doesn't notice when the goblins steal her baby sister away. But she quickly sets out in the rain to save her, wearing her mother's yellow raincoat and using her horn to dance the goblins into a stream. She "made a serious mistake," however, climbing backwards through her window "into outside over there." Advice from her absent father sets her on the proper path, however, and she arrives in time to interrupt the goblin's wedding, rescue her sister and save the day.

The story, less than 400 words long, is written in a poetic style of prose that begs to be read aloud.

Ida played a frenzied jig, a hornpipe that makes sailors wild beneath the ocean moon.
Those goblins pranced so fierce, so fast, they quick churned into a dancing stream.
Except for one who lay cozy in an eggshell, crooning and clapping as a baby should. And that was Ida's sister.
Now Ida glad hugged baby tight and she followed the stream that curled like a path along the broad meadow
and up the ringed-round hill to her Mama in the arbor with a letter from Papa....

The illustrations are gorgeous, much more painterly than Wild Things, with lush wooded backgrounds and crowds of sunflowers and Ida, with her big, serious eyes and oversized feet.

It's a great book, well deserving of the honors heaped on it since its release nearly 40 years ago. The story rests solidly on established lore, unlike Wild Things, and it gives its female protagonist a more serious problem than Max, who simply missed his dinner and dreamed an island of beasts to escape his room.