An Awesome Way to Give Thanks

Most of us, when we’re grateful for something, say “thank you” like our parents taught us to. If we’re really grateful (or our parents were particularly good at training us) then we’ll even send a thank-you note. Dallas Clayton, in a particularly grateful mood, decided to write a book about it.

You may remember Clayton as the author of An Awesome Book. It’s a book he originally wrote for his son and when he decided to self-publish it, it really took on a life of its own. It even changed Clayton’s life: he formed the Awesome World Foundation and decided to give away a copy of his book for each one sold, traveling around the country and giving away books. It’s a fun and inspiring story, and at the heart of it is Clayton’s childlike wonder and appreciation for both the big and the little things in life.

An Awesome Book of Thanks! is Clayton’s thank-you note to all the people who bought his first book, the people who read it, the things that inspired it, people he hasn’t even met yet. It’s full of fun drawings and a poem about giving thanks, and is equal parts sincere and silly. This time around Clayton was picked up by Amazon Encore, a new program to find and promote “exceptional yet overlooked books,” and I think this is the first kids’ book in the program. Like his first, it’s a lot of fun to read out loud and his drawings are filled with oodles of tiny details that you and your kids would have fun exploring. It’s also a bit longer than An Awesome Book, though still short enough to make a good bedtime story.

The whole book is a lot of fun, but here’s a page that’s one of my personal favorites: