John

December 28, 2001

To Mr. Pinkwater,

We absolutely love your book the Big Orange Splot! We love how Mr. Plumbean expresses his individuality. I recently was reading an old copy of a book called Mr. Pine’s Purple House, and I can’t remember the name of the author, I think the last name was Keller. What I was wondering was if you had read his book as a child and used it at all for inspiration. Of course the storyline is totally different from Big Orange Splot, but the very heart of the story made me think of Big Orange Splot in the sense that the character wanted his house to be “different” from the rest of the houses on the street. John, from Michigan

I think someone showed me that book a couple of years ago. I'd never seen it before. I was inspired by living in a dreary housing development one winter.