![]() ![]() “He had an ability to cut through objections with a witty twist,” Ellison said. ![]() One of those people was former business partner Joanne Ellison, who also served with Braun on the Linden Hills Business Association and joined him and others on a Linden Hills street beautification project. People would come along for the ride because he was fun.” “People were attracted to him because he was very engaging,” Britton said. “It started lots of conversations in the neighborhood.”īraun was an “extreme extrovert” with a zest for life and a passion for celebrating even the smallest moments, his wife said. “When he walked the dog, he would stop and chat with people and somehow end up telling them he had Alzheimer’s,” she said. When he was diagnosed, he decided to talk about the disease in hopes of reducing the stigma of it, Britton said. It’s a place of wonder created by a man who never lost touch with his own inner child.īraun suffered from Alzheimer’s disease the last four years. “You walk into Wild Rumpus and it’s like walking into a book,” she added. It was a warm, welcoming haven on snowy days, she said. There are surprises at every turn, Britton said.Īfter moving from Australia in 1996, she visited the bookstore with her children long before she knew Braun. Flip off the light in the bathroom, and an aquarium of fish appears behind the mirror. Two cats and a chicken roam the store while two chinchillas, a cockatiel, two mourning doves, a tarantula and three rats have their own designated spaces. ![]() “I don’t know why he did that, but it’s funny,” said Braun’s wife, Felicity Britton of Minneapolis. Likewise, Braun, with the help of an architect, transformed a 2,000-square-foot storefront into a world that takes visitors on a make-believe jaunt into the outdoors, complete with a sunrise, a garden shed and a tree-trimmer who appears to be embedded in the ceiling’s sheet rock with only a pants leg and boots seen at top of the ladder. With each turn of the page, the boy’s bedroom evolves into a forest. It’s a magical place that Tom Braun brought to life more than two decades ago, inspired by the “The Salamander Room,” a book about a boy who brings a salamander home from the forest. Behind the purple door at Wild Rumpus, an award-winning children’s bookstore in Minneapolis’ Linden Hills neighborhood, is an enchanting world of books, whimsical art and a menagerie of animals. ![]()
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