Literary Gift...for my Architect Husband and Building Contractor!

Two weeks ago, a mother volunteered to read a book to our class and brought The Big Orange Splot by Daniel Pinkwater. I had a teacher friend who always started her school year using this book but I personally had never actually read it myself. As Ethan's mom read, connections were made for me!

I was moved by these lines:
First line - "...all the houses were the same." 

"My house is where I like to be and it looks like all my dreams." (stated AFTER main character changes the appearance of his house).

"..whenever anybody visited Mr. Plumbean's house, the very next day that person would set about changing his own house to fit his dreams."

"Our street is where we like to be, and it looks like all our dreams."

Immediately, I bought two copies of this book to use as Literary Gifts:
1. One for my architect husband who designed a very smart, sustainable, energy-efficient home (which we are moving into TOMORROW!!!!) which does NOT look like all the other houses on the street.
2. One for Galaxy Homes, our building contractor, who welcomed the unconventional design of the house, and worked hard to build it, following Brian's drawings and making his dream a reality.

I taped these two photos to the last page of the picture book, adding my own THANK YOU note - Thank you for building us a home that is NOT the same as all the others!

Additional Findings:
When I googled this book, I discovered it was picked as #48 in Top 100 Picture Books for Children
by ALA.

By going to Daniel Pinkwater's website, I learned he have written LOTS of books and that his wife, Jill, is also a writer. Then I discovered I have probably heard him on NPR (He is also an occasional commentator on National Public Radio’s All Thing Considered and appears regularly onWeekend Edition Saturday, where he reviews exceptional kids’ books with host Scott Simon.) I see that for $.99 I can buy many of his novels for my Kindle, something I plan to do! And I thought he was only known for The Big Orange Splot published in 1977 by Scholastic!