Maurice Sendak gives an amazingly grumpy interview to Stephen Colbert

I imagine children’s book authors to conform to particular stereotypes. Dr. Seuss is an old crotchety man, reading to children gathered around him in a warmly lit library. Inexplicably, he is wearing a Santa costume. Mother Goose has her silly hat. In addition to the circle of children around her in the library, there are random barnyard animals clucking about. And Eric Carl is made out of tissue paper, duh. But a grumpy gay old man who dislikes children only slightly less than adults? Not exactly how I pictured the revered Maurice Sendak, author of “Where the Wild Things Are.”

In an interview on “The Colbert Report” this week, Sendak let the secret slip that he is a cantankerous old fart who is, coincidentally, hilarious. He says book signings are “dreadful,” admits that he “doesn’t write for children,” and calls Newt Gingrich “an idiot” with something so “hopelessly gross and vile about him.”

Anyway, you gotta watch this interview. Never have I seen an old Jewish guy take on Stephen Colbert with such an ironic mix of disdain and glee since Larry King.

Awesome interview Part I

 

But wait, there’s more! Part II