The Day the Crayons Quit

Bluebonnet Award Winner, 2015

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Justification: I selected this Bluebonnet Award winner for it's playful, imaginative qualities and creatively rendered colorful illustrations.

It's also really funny! There are also important messages to be gleaned inside this picture book. Inequality, identity, self-esteem and responsibility are all touched on through the scribbled letters from the crayons to their owner, Duncan.

Evaluation: This book is cheekily self-referential in that the illustrations are colored using the subjects (the crayons) which are rendered crudely to represent a child's drawings. One day, a little boy named Duncan goes to open his box of crayons to color and instead he finds a stack of letters. The letter are written from each of his crayons and they are on strike! The story's pictorial narrative takes the reader through one penned letter at a time and the objects mentioned in the text is visually represented in the illustration. Each letter is written from the perspective of a differently colored crayon, most of whom feel either exploited or underutilized and unless things change for them, they are going on strike. For example, the overworked grey crayon laments the intensive, heavy coloring of elephants, hippos, and rhinos. Grey crayon (our wonderfully creative illustrator, Oliver Jeffers) renders the images of the large beasts them on the opposite page. He even makes a suggestion that Duncan should instead color tiny grey pebbles to give him a break.

This book, while humorously written, explores some more serious themes. One might be led to consider what it would be like to be treated differently. You could ask you students after a read-aloud: How would you feel? What does it mean to quit something when someone depends on you? What are responsibilities? What are the consequences?

This book is also an exploration of normative identity. As the crayons outline their complaints and abuses, pink crayon bemoans being typecast as a "girl's crayon" for all of its coloring and wishes to be used more often. In fact, Duncan hasn't used pink crayon all year! Pink crayon asks to color a dinosaur, a monster, or a cowboy. We see all three rendered in resplendent pink alongside a picture of a pink princess colored by his sister.

This book also has underlying commentary about art. What makes "good" art? What is "bad" art? Must the sun be colored in yellow or orange? It is necessary to color things they way they appear in real life? Is there a prescriptive way to color? Can dinosaurs be pink? The Day the Crayons Quit explores aesthetics and encourages our unseen character of Duncan, and the reader, to "color outside the lines" or think creatively. In the end of the book Duncan colors a picture with an orange whale, a yellow sky, a red horse and a blue hippo. There's a pink cowboy and a pink dinosaur in a rowboat. A green sea, blue crocodile and orange elephant juggling multi-color fruit under a black rainbow. He's appeased his disgruntled crayons and earned an "A" for coloring.

Conclusion: This book is a brilliantly creative interpretation of crayon-coloring from the perspective of the crayons themselves. The humor will appeal to adult and child audiences.The little boy, Duncan, only appears in the book via proxy by his illustrations, which the crayons use as examples of all of their hard work and dedication. Suitable for lower grades K-3.

APA Reference: Daywalt, D., & Jeffers, O. (2013). The day the crayons quit. New York: Philomel Books.