James Gandolfini Reads from Maurice Sendak’s Children’s Story “In The Night Kitchen”

Two weeks ago, we gave a brief, pass­ing men­tion to a gem of a clip — James Gan­dolfi­ni read­ing from Mau­rice Sendak’s con­tro­ver­sial chil­dren’s book In The Night Kitchen (1970). Giv­en the unfor­tu­nate and untime­ly demise of the actor, it seems worth putting this video direct­ly into the spot­light for a moment. Gan­dolfini’s read­ing took place on Sep­tem­ber 15, 2008 at the 92nd St Y in New York City, at a cel­e­bra­tion held on the occa­sion of Mau­rice Sendak’s 80th birth­day. A fan of Sendak’s great chil­dren’s tales, Gan­dolfi­ni also per­formed the voice of Car­ol in the 2009 film adap­ta­tion of Where The Wild Things Are. Lis­ten below.