What's the Name of That Book??? discussion
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The Little Painter
SOLVED: Children's/YA
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SOLVED. Children’s Picture book: man buys an inexpensive can of brown paint and paints house - the next day brown turned to rainbow colors! [s]
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This might be The Little Painter by Ralph and Jill Marchant. The Google Books description reads: "The little painter has just two pence and buys a little rusty tin of paint. The paint is a wishy-washy muddy colour, but he paints his house and the tin remains full even as he finishes the last chimney pot. Overnight the house is transformed with beautiful colours. His life is changed as the tin of paint works its magic each time he uses it."
There's a copy on Amazon that has a photo of the front cover, if that helps.
"Although he loves to paint, the small painter is not very good until he buys some strange mud-colored paint."Cover: https://www.librarything.com/work/828...
Oh my gooooooosh I think this was it!!!!!!!!!! I LOVE YOU! I just bought the copy from Amazon.
Very poor man buys a rusted can of cheap old can of ugly brown paint. Turns out, this paint can was magical because it didn’t run out. He paints his whole house this ugly brown. The next morning, the sun rose and it turned the brown into rainbow colors.
The king of the land saw his house and was jealous and demanded the guy paint his castle. He paints the castle this ugly brown color and the king is furious - so furious that he orders the man be killed. While at the execution platform, the sun finally rises and the king sees his castle is now rainbows. Happy ending.
I read this book probably around 1996. At the time, it seemed old. Pages were, I believe, full color (i.e. not two color plates like Frog & Toad) because of the rainbows.
Since there was a king in the story, I would guess location/setting was England. But paint cans existed so maybe just sort of "fantasy."