I Touched the Sun: A Conversation with Leah Hayes and Emily Flake
June 8 @ 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm
$7.00 – $15.00
Join us for an in-conversation event with cartoonists/illustrators Leah Hayes and Emily Flake, in celebration of Leah’s picture book debut, I Touched the Sun (Enchanted Lion Books).
A child dreams of flying up to touch the sun. But…
His mother says it’s too far away. His dad says it’s too hot. And his brother says he has more important things to do. But none of this discourages a young boy from pursuing his plan: to fly up into the sky to touch the Sun, whose light always feels so nice on his skin. And so, off he goes, all by himself.
Warm and kindly, the Sun shows the boy the world from her perspective: her friends the clouds, the beaches upon which she shines down, the trees she’s grown, the rainbows she creates. In return, the boy shares with her some of his dreams, fears, hopes, and uncertainties—complexities of the human condition that the Sun, as a cosmic force of constant light, has never experienced. In this way, the boy begins to understand something about the pattern of light and shadow that makes up every human life.
And when it’s time to part ways, the boy returns home to his family changed, with an inner light that reminds him that the cosmic force of the sun is in him, too, always, though darkness falls, though he sleeps and dreams, though doubts and fears and gloominess come, too.
$15 general, $10 members, $7 students
Leah Hayes is a graphic novelist, illustrator, and the creator of the New York Times bestselling graphic novel Not Funny Ha-Ha. Her editorial illustrations appear in The New Yorker, the New York Times, and other publications.
Hayes is also a musician and the leader of her band, Scary Mansion, as well as a producer and songwriter for other pop and hip hop artists. She lives with her husband and two children on a sun-soaked island off the coast of Massachusetts.
Emily Flake is a cartoonist-writer-performer-teacher-illustrator. She is a regular contributor to The New Yorker and The Nib, and is the author-illustrator of Mama Tried (Grand Central Publishing) and These Things Ain’t Gonna Smoke Themselves (Bloomsbury). She is also the proprietress of St. Nell’s Humor Writing Residency for Ladies in Williamsport, PA.