That ever-present sense of whimsy is the force behind the tutu-clad pigs and chocolate-craving hippos that adorn Boynton's line of more than 5,000 greeting cards, her novelty items (mugs and balloons) and her 30 children's books—as well as Philadelphia Chickens, her just-released children's CD (with a companion songbook).
The album's cast of celebrities—including Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline and Laura Linney—sing about the things kids care about most. "Please, Can I Keep It?" for example, is about a child's yearning for a pet. "I used to love records like this growing up," says Linney, "records you bond with."
The third of four daughters raised in Philadelphia by an English teacher and a school secretary, Boynton turned her drawing talent into a business in 1972, when the then-Yale junior had an uncle print up some of her cards. In three months she sold 30,000.
Today Boynton, 49, shares a Connecticut farm with McEwan, 50, a book writer, their four children—students Caitlin, 23, Keith, 20, Devin, 18, and Darcy, 12—and her imagination. "She took a train the other day," McEwan says. "She took a sketch pad with her and came back with a new book."
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
