Howdy folks - I'm Sam, the new resident wordsmith here in the virtual Crooked House offices. I work with Glen at our day jobs (but that's another story).

In getting ready to tell people the Crooked House story, I've done a lot of thinking and talking about what it means to be Crooked. What does this company stand for? Why does it exist?

Of course, the whole "about us" creation story is fairly spot on, and Glen does care quite a bit about this whole "active play" revolution he's trying to take part in and lead, but when you talk to Glen, you realize his vision is about more than just getting kids to play outside.

I was listening to him talk about his ideas for a Crooked children's book series, once. He can map out the whole first story in his head: A kid who isn't "normal," for whatever reason (is it hard to think of a reason?), stumbles upon a little crooked house in the forest, who's been ostracized by more conventional buildings from his home village. Together, the little kid and the little crooked house build their own village that attracts "crooked" kids, animals, and, just, well, stuff, from all around. The place becomes a hive of creative and innovative activity. The village becomes the talk of the local countryside and all of a sudden the "normal" people start moving in, desperate for the uniqueness and color and fun that's been stamped out of their own villages as they've driven off all the crookeds in their quest for uniformity.

In the end, the Crooked Village spreads out into a great, teeming city, with people setting off in every direction to found new crooked villages all over the world.

But, really, that's what Glen wants to do in real life. He wants to build these crooked villages, these crooked homes, that look and feel as different as every kid sometimes feels when he's not wearing the right baseball hat, or she doesn't have the silly band that every other kid has on her wrist. He's got one of the biggest hearts I've ever encountered (and belly, too, but he's working on that), and he just totally understands kids. It was wicked cool (as we say here in Maine) to just watch him coach Little League.

Are you Crooked? Are your kids Crooked? We've got a house for that.