At the age of 23, Dave Szalay had just begun to tackle a lot of firsts.
First house. First year of marriage. First advertising job. Then, for reasons that had little to do with his in-the-moment ambitions, he wrote a letter to one of the authors who inspired him as a child growing up in Akron.
Szalay, as an elementary school student, was introduced to rhythmic books — from “Horton Hears A Who!” to “Fox in Socks” and others — by his grandmother, who worked at a bookstore. A village of teachers and librarians at Rimer Elementary School also made an impact on the creative pupil.
In his letter, Szalay credited the famous writer’s whimsical worlds of striped hats, ambitious turtles and neon-bright fish with pulling him toward reading, sounding out words for hours, when he was still struggling with the fundamentals. Szalay proclaimed he hoped to one day inspire kids too…