The Big Orange Splot by Daniel Pinkwater

An errant seagull drops orange paint on Mr. Plumbean's house (no one knows why). What he does next involves murals of elephants and lions and pretty girls, plantings of frangipani, baobabs, and onions, and a pet alligator. One by one, his horrified neighbors visit to try and talk sense into him, only to be told: "My house is me and I am it. My house is where I like to be and it looks like all of my dreams."

This is a jolt, and as the neighbors begin to consider their own dreams and houses, the neighborhood transforms into a street of palaces, temples, and hot air balloons. And when people visit and say it is not neat, they answer: "Our street is us and we are it. Our street is where we like to be, and it looks like all of our dreams."

Extravagant vocabulary, hilarity, marker illustrations, and sneaky philosophy. What more can you want in a book? It's an urtext for my family, along with The Wuggie Norple Story, another (rarer) Pinkwater classic that involves an ever-growing cat named Wuggie Norple and a household of strange pets with even stranger names, including Laughing Gas Alligator, Papercup Mixmaster, Freckleface Chilibean, and Exploding Poptart.