Frank Spina

Mr. Pinkwater,

I am a multiage teacher in Starksboro, a small rural community in Vermont. As part of a Jr. Great Books activity I read your book “The Blue Moose” to my class of second and third graders. We were so taken with it that we wrote a prequel to it entitled “The Blue Moose Journals”. It is about the life of the Blue Moose before he met Mr. Benton. I am not sure whether I have broken any copywrite restrictions by doing this and thought I should write to you and find out. We will not be sending the final draft along with the illustrations to any publishing houses (although I think my students did a great job). Each child will get a copy, however.

The only characters that appear in both your version and ours are the Blue Moose and Dave the hermit and our version ends with the Blue Moose brushing past Mr. Benton to enter his house and sit by the stove. Once again let me say how much we enjoyed “The Blue Moose”. It provided us with an opportunity to have some very good discussions.