sisters

I only have a couple photos here in England of my sister and me when we were little, my mother has most of them back in the States. I found this one, when we were still kind of in the cute phase. But it’s not really how we exist in my memory, I remember us being absolutely horrid. And not long after this picture, I got bottle-thick plastic glasses.

In fact, my sister and I only stopped detesting each other when we were fourteen and sixteen, and started sneaking out to Seattle nightclubs together. We took the car and didn’t start the ignition until after we’d pushed it down the hill, so my parents wouldn’t hear. We got to be really good friends after that because we were partners in crime.

Alex Milway just got his delivery of badges for the Crystal Palace Children’s Book Festival happening this Saturday. I ran out of Vern and Lettuce badges, so I’m glad Vern will get a second lease on badge life.

I think my favourite (after Vern, ’cause we’re buddies) is the cat badge by Viviane Schwarz. Have you seen There are Cats in this Book? Not only is it brilliantly illustrated with comics speech bubbles, but the paper mechanics are simple but so, so clever. Like this one where the cat tells you to toss him a ball of wool, and you pull the wool across the page and it wallops him in the face, much to his amusement. There’s another cat that gets walloped in a pillow fight, and then at the end you get to tuck the cats into bed, all with perfect little flaps. My little neighbour friend just came back from Nigeria today and she came over for eggy toast for tea and we read Viviane’s book for her bedtime story. Then she begged to take it back with her for company tonight in her bedroom, saying “this is a great book, it’s like the cats are really talking to me!” She’s coming to the festival with me so she can meet that funny lady who makes the cats.