I smiled through every page of LIVING WITH A LEGEND, recognizing the very special man I was privileged to know, Iwao Takamoto, but seeing him through the highly personal perspective of someone who knew him so much better. Leslie Stern has not simply written a loving, funny, and poignant portrait of an important American artist, she has wonderfully set down the record of a unique American family, one whose strength came through its very diversity. To paraphrase Iwao himself, Living With a Legend was not written through the hands, but through the heart.