It’s Bedtime With Seth Meyers
(and His Picture Book)
by Laura Lambert
Are you even a 21st century late-night TV host if you don’t have a children’s book?
In 2015, it was Jimmy Fallon with Your Baby’s First Word Will Be Dada, followed by Everything Is MAMA. In 2019, it was Jimmy Kimmel’s The Serious Goose. And now, Seth Meyers — host of Late Night with Seth Meyers and former head writer for NBC’s Saturday Night Live — has given us I’m Not Scared, You’re Scared, the tale of a big, reluctant scared bear and a spunky bunny who patiently brings him along on an adventure — and what happens to your fear when what’s at stake is more powerful.
Perhaps the through-line is the magic of those late-night hours, when, as adults, our guards are down and, as children, it’s bedtime.
Or the unifying force of fatherhood.
“I’m very lucky,” says Meyers, a father of three. “With the schedule of our show now, I’m home in time for bedtime, and I have a wonderful hour with them. They are at their most chill when we’re reading. I have very little to complain about, with a boy on each side of me, actually listening.”
Here, Meyers shares how I’m Not Scared, You’re Scared came together, during one of the more anxious times in modern memory.
Is there an anxious scaredy cat in your life who inspired you — a person behind the bear?
No, not really. I think it’s more about having kids and realizing you have to think about fear differently.
As an adult, so much is about bucking up and getting on with it. Kids have this new relationship with fear; it’s real to them. You can’t just say, That’s nothing to be afraid of.
There’s also the idea that sometimes it’s great when your kids are afraid — like when they don’t want to climb to the top of the jungle gym that is too old for them. That’s great.
The difference between my wife and I is that when we are in the city and the kids are on scooters, I always yell Slow down! before they get to the street. She says, They know. They also don’t want to get hit by a car.
I wanted, in the book, to have a thing where the fear was right.
Fear can be good for you. Is there someone who inspired the bold, fearless rabbit?
I will say, my wife is the rabbit.
Can you tell me a little bit about how the story itself came together?
It was a lot like sketch writing. The premise occurred to me first — and then you want to build out the premise with characters that could unfold it.
My biggest hesitation was knowing that in children’s publishing, the bear and the rabbit are sort of cliché. Like, You know who’s gonna get to the kids?! A talking bear.
But if it ain’t broke…
It’s funny, when writing a book, the first order of business is that I hope kids like it. And then, I hope parents won’t hate it if they have to read it over and over.
You have three kids, yes? 5, 3 and a new baby. What kind of bedtime stories do they ask for at night?
The boys love bedtime. They’re in the sweet spot. We do three books a night.
Impressive.
They’ve suckered me — but it’s my own doing. I introduced the idea of superheroes to my kids. And so, they want me to explain what a superhero is.
Every night, it’s Tell us a Batman and Robin story. I’ve hit a breaking point. As a parent, I’m fulling admitting it: Daddy can’t make up another story about Batman.
So, their new thing is While you’re reading Babar, think of a Batman story. I tell them, I’m sorry, that’s not how the brain works.
Given the timing, I have to ask — was this a pandemic project?
It was a pandemic project. I have a lovely publisher who reached out. Schedule-wise, it gave me time to knock out a book.
I came out of the pandemic with a kid’s book and a third child.
Can you tell me a little bit about the actual writing process?
The show is different: There’s always a deadline, there’s a churn to it. But any project with a longer lead time, I think about it a great deal before I sit down to write.
Especially with this one — I told it to my kids at night as an oral story, fine-tuning it that way.
There were a few things in the early version that were too scary. So, they were actually helpful.
And then the illustrator, Rob Sayegh, did so much of the work. In the end, you write out the script, maybe you do it in a day, and then the illustrator says, I’ll see you in a year!
How was it working with him?
I wrote a comic book once, which has so many more panes. So, this was a great education for me.
First lesson: Trust the artist.
He did rough sketches, almost like story boards. And then I read that to my kids, to clean up anything that was confusing to them.
Because that’s another gift I wanted to give to parents — that their kids aren’t asking a bunch of questions when it’s over.
Is there anything else that people should know about this side of you, the children’s book author?
I’m a little ashamed to think this book was ego-driven, that I thought, as I read to them at night, Hey, you know, your dad can write a little bit…
And of course, the giant risk if that they’re not gonna want to read it.
But the thing they love the most now, which speaks to their egos, is seeing their names in a book.