The Big Orange Splot by Daniel Manus Pinkwater

"The Big Orange Splot" is about a man by the name of Mr. Plumbean who lives on a street where all the houses look exactly the same and nobody ever complained. One day, a seagull flew over Mr. Plumbean's house with a can of bright orange paint and accidently dropped it all over his roof. While all of Mr. Plumbean's neighbors thought he would just fix the one orange splot, he actually gets the crazy idea to paint pictures all of over his house using all the colors of the rainbow. All of a sudden his house stood out from all the others and his neighbors thought he had "lost his marbles." One by one his neighbors went to visit Mr. Plumbean to try to knock some sense in to him and his crazy house. After each neighbor went to speak to him, the very next day their own house had changed into something wild as well until each person decorated their house in a creative way as well. Each of the houses represented each of that owner's dreams. I love this book, it was given to me by my first grade teacher and I think it is a great book to read to children because it teaches an important lesson. It expresses to children that they should be their own person and put less emphasis on what other people may think of them. Furthermore, it would be a fun activity to help children work their way by asking questions for them to get to this main idea of the story. The illustrations of the different houses are also fun to look at too!