As a lover of vintage children’s books and of all things Sesame Street, I was instantly enamored with How to Be a Grouch (public library), recently unearthed by Burgin Streetman’ — a vintage Sesame Street book and record, in which Oscar the Grouch spills the secrets of the trade with his signature brand of delightful curmudgeonliness, weaving a masterful case of reverse psychology for young readers.

First of all —
If you want to be a grouch,
You’ll have to stop being so
NICE AND CUTE!
Next — learn to frown!

Though my favorite piece of grouchy advice, one empirically proven via years of first-hand experience and attested to by creative minds far worthier than myself, has to be this:

And perhaps it was a certain recent unreasonable proposition regarding PBS funding, but I couldn’t help noticing a certain resemblance:

How to Be a Grouch was originally published in 1976 and re-released in 1981.

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