The Day The Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt

The Day The Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt, illustrated by Oliver Jeffers

Rating: 5 stars

This book is getting a whole lotta hype.

And for good reason.  It is super clever, makes you (yes, you--even grown ups) giggle, and has applaud-worthy illustrations.  Seriously, every time I page through it I just want to put the book down and clap. Bravo, Drew Daywalt!  Bravo, Oliver Jeffers!  After Rosie Revere, Engineer, this is my second favorite book of 2013.

Here's the fun story: A boy named Duncan reaches for his dependable box of crayons, but instead of the box he finds a stack of letters.  Each letter is written by a different color.  Each one tells his or her own story, told in that crayon's unique "voice."

"Dear Duncan, Green Crayon here. I like my work..."

Take Gray, for example. He is tired of being used for the BIGGEST animals on the planet, or, in this case, on the paper.  Rhinos, elephants, hippos, humpback whales...they really use him up.  He asks Duncan: Why not color baby penguins or small pebbles?  These would give Gray a break, while still including him in the picture.

Or take Lorelei's favorite color and Duncan's least favorite color, pink.  Pink is tired of being looked over.  She challenges Duncan to use her to color the occasional dinosaur or monster or cowboy PINK.  That would be fun and different!  (She also compliments Duncan's sister on her superb coloring between the lines when Duncan's sister borrowed her to color in an princess.)

"When Duncan shows his teacher his new picture,
he gave him an A for coloring..."

The story is fantastic--creative and cool and fun.  But the illustrations are so spot-on.  Oliver Jeffers manages to create doodles that look sort of kid-drawn but a little too neat and clever to be kid-drawn.  But he uses those crayons in the most inspiring ways--it's hard not to grab a new box of crayons and start scribbling.  (Since reading this, we often grab a crayon and ask it, "What do you want to draw today?" and pretend the crayon itself is drawing the picture.)

The book ends with Duncan incorporating ALL the colors into one fantastic illustration-coloring. All of the colors are included, their requests have been granted, even Black's desire for a black rainbow once in a while.  Wonderfully silly, right?

I've got to say it again: Bravo, Drew Daywalt!  Bravo, Oliver Jeffers!  Wonderful job.