In May 2013, Jo Kittinger traveled to New York City to receive a Christopher Award for The House on Dirty Third Street, a book that “affirms the highest values of the human spirit” in the words of the selection committee.

The seed for The House on Dirty Third Street was planted when Kittinger and her husband were out of town, searching for an address on Thirty-Third Street. Kittinger became tongue-tied and she said dirty-third for thirty-third. “I started wondering what Dirty-Third Street would look like,” she says. One wisp of an idea led to another and soon Kittinger incorporated her experience repairing homes with fellow church-members in impoverished neighborhoods with her family’s frequent moves during her childhood. “The House on Dirty-Third Street captured a lot of who I am,” she says, “those memories of moving and having to start over in a new place.” More…