Her first book, Hippos Go Berserk, was written in 1977 while still a student at Yale. While in the greeting card business, Boynton wrote children's books on the side. It was there that she met her husband, Jamie McEwan. After a year at Berkeley, Boynton transferred to Yale to study drama, but later dropped out. While there, she continued designing greeting cards, later signing with a Chicago company, Recycled Paper Greetings. These memorable characters have appeared on thousands of cards over the years, as well as novelty items like mugs and calendars.Īfter Yale, Boynton attended the University of California, Berkeley, where she studied drama. Her best-selling greeting cards feature whimsical cartoons such as a hippo, dinosaur, and pig. Perhaps the key to Boynton's success was her mastery of a new style of greeting cards-a style that avoided sentimentality and clich? and instead delivered humor, whimsy, and wit. The summer of her junior year, she began creating gift cards, which she printed in her uncle's press and sold to stores. She attended Yale, where she studied English. The third child to parents Robert and Jeanne, Boynton was raised as a Quaker and attended Germantown Friends School, where her father taught English. With the collaboration of composer Michael Ford (known to Boynton fans from Rhinoceros Tap), Philadelphia Chickens is that rarest of kids' musical discs-one whose inimitable lyrics and music make it as sing-along, dance-along, cluck-along for parents as it is for their children.Though born in Orange County, New Jersey on April 3, 1953, Sandra Boynton was raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Also joining in are Eric Stoltz, Natasha Richardson, Scott Bakula, and two Boyntons, including daughter Caitlin McEwan, who performs a piece that every little listener will relate to-a love song to the chocolate chip cookies that are just out of reach. It's what happens when you take America's beloved illustrator and children's author and combine her buoyant genius with some of the most talented people on the stage-presenting Philadelphia Chickens!Ĭreated by Sandra Boynton, Philadelphia Chickens is a family musical in a book, bringing together a full-color songbook of 17 1/2 illustrated story-poems with a full-length, fully orchestrated CD of original songs performed by the likes of Patti LuPone, Kevin Kline, Meryl Streep, The Bacon Brothers, and Laura Linney, who pleads 'Please, Can I Keep It?'-it followed me home. Exuberant, unexpected, and utterly endearing. What an event! What a show! It's catchy and quirky. Includes CD! Please see our guide to book conditions for more details.

Philadelphia chickens book