My Sister Comes Through

The second best thing to being there is having your AWESOME sister spend the better part of her Saturday morning getting you the best early birthday present, ever. She hit the Phaidon store in NYC today to meet Tomi Ungerer and get some books signed for me (and the boy), and even met a blog reader in the line. My sister knew little about Tomi when she woke up this morning, but now she's smitten.

Seriously, who wouldn't be? During the presentation portion, she said Tomi was really playing and laughing and mixing up talking with stories and drawing tricks.

These are her short notes from the front, accompanied by snapshots....

He was telling all kinds of stories. If you can see in this one, he has his coat over his head and was telling a story to the kids sitting on the ground. Saying that they were going to get germs from sitting on the ground. And then it turned into a scary story about how all the germs were going to multiply and come and get them. His hands are crooked, like the germs are coming to GET them. All the kids were shrieking.

In this picture, if you can see the two dots on his left hand by his thumb-- they were the eyes he drew on for a hand puppet trick for the kids. He was doing all kinds of drawing tricks and at one point a woman passed a pair of scissors through the crowd so he could cut out a drawing for a child in a demonstration.

...and a picture of what is now inside inside said birthday present.

Maybe turning 39 won't be so bad after all!

What a happy day... Thanks Weez. You are the best sister in the world!