Module 1: Harold and the Purple Crayon

Summary: Harold is a little boy with a huge imagination.  He goes on an adventure with his crayon leading the way.  He draws whatever he needs with his purple crayon to make his adventure complete and to get back home to his window in his bedroom.

APA Reference: Johnson, C. (1999). Harold and the purple crayon. New York, NY: Scholastic, Inc.

Impressions: I love the creativity of Harold and the Purple Crayon.  The imagination that Harold has in creating his world is priceless.  It shows kids how important imagination is.  I know that this is an older book but I do not remember this book from when I was a kid and I think that I would because it is so special.  I really like that Harold does not give up trying to find his window and his bedroom it shows perseverance.  The illustrations are simple but interesting with just purple lines drawn by Harold's crayon and Harold.

Professional Review:

Top 100 Children’s Novels #16: Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson

JUNE 14, 2012 BY ELIZABETH BIRD

#16 Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson (1955)
73 points

It’s like the best kind of dream! It’s surreal and meta and mindbending! And also funny! I found it haunting when I was a kid, reality being created as you go; now that surrealism is one of my favorite things about it. I love the bits like there being nothing but pie, but it was all nine kinds of pie Harold liked best; and random characters like the very hungry moose and deserving porcupine. It’s so simple and so brilliant! – Amy M. Weir

Because it’s the most succinct expression of imaginative possibility ever created. – Philip Nel

Uh-oh.  Another book has slipped down from the Top Ten.  Previously ranking at #7, Harold manages to cling to the Top 20 but it’s hard to think what might replace him.  The boy is ubiquitous, after all.

The plot synopsis from B&N reads, “Harold’s wonderful purple crayon makes everything he draws become real. One evening, Harold draws a path and a moon and goes for a walk-and the moon comes too. After many adventures, Harold gets tired and can’t find his bedroom. Finally, he remembers that the moon always shines through his bedroom window. He draws himself a bed, and ‘the purple crayon dropped on the floor, and Harold dropped off to sleep.’ This little gem is filled with visual and written puns.”

Growing up I knew of Harold but had far more of a connection to the rip-off animated seriesSimon in the Land of the Chalk Drawings.  Odd but true.

There are many things to enjoy in Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom.  What the book really does best, though, is give us a salty editor talking about the classics she’s editing in her customary off-hand manner.  Take Harold and the Purple Crayon.  In a letter dated December 15, 1954, Ursula has just gotten a revised version of this story and she is writing to Crockett, the author/illustrator.  “I’m awfully sorry my first reaction to Harold was so lukewarm and unenthusiastic.  I really think it is going to make a darling book, and I certainly was wrong at first.  This is a funny job.  The Harper children’s books have had such a good fall, so many on so many lists, etc. etc., and I was feeling a little good – not satisfied, you understand, but I thought gosh I’m really catching on to things, I bet, and pretty soon it ought to get easier.  And then I stubbed my toe on Harold and his damned purple crayon . . . .”

At long last I finally have an excuse to break out my old Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics.  You see if you know anything about Crockett Johnson you know he wrote Harold and the Purple Crayon and illustrated The Carrot Seed.  If you know anything else about him, though, you may be aware that his real name was David Johnson Liesk and that between 1942 and 1946 (after which it was handed it over to others) he created the comic strip Barnaby. Barnaby has its fans.  People have said it was a predecessor to Calvin and Hobbes, though the premise varies slightly.  As the Smithsonian puts it, the story was really about “a boy and his cigar-chomping fairy godfather, Mister O’Malley.”  Johnson began as a magazine cartoonist, turned to picture books in the 50’s and, “in his later years (he died in 1975) he devoted himself to nonobjective painting.”  I’ve attempted to scan some Barnaby strips for you, in case you’re interested.  I apologize for the shoddy quality of my scanner.

• Want to read Harold for yourself?  Go here.

• In September of 2012 we will finally get a chance to see Philip Nel’s highly anticipatedCrockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss: How an Unlikely Couple Found Love, Dodged the FBI, and Transformed Children’s Literature.  You can see Phil talk about this book at NYPL on October 27th.

• Harold wasn’t afraid of a sequel or two either.  If you want to see the full original line-up (everything from Harold’s Trip to the Sky to Harold’s Circus) Kansas State University has a rather lovely collection of variegated covers (from Philip Nel, to be precise).

• When I first started exploring the scary world of online children’s literature resources, one of the first I stumbled across was Harold D. Underdown’s site The Purple Crayon.  It’s still running too.

• Feel like listening to something?  All Things Considered had a short piece back in 2005 called The Appeal of “Harold and the Purple Crayon”.  The piece speaks to Maurice Sendak, and also contains a reading of the original letter wherein Nordstrom was unenthused by the initial draft of the story.  I like how she concedes to feeling a little “dead in the head” and that she’d probably pass up Tom Sawyer if it arrived on her desk.

• Apparently there was an Emmy award winning 13-part Harold and the Purple Crayonseries that ran on HBO.  You can even view an episode or two here if you like.  An interesting compare and contrast with the earlier ‘59 version.

And, best for last.  The glitter rock opera version of Harold.  You’ll have it stuck in your head all day now.

Horn Book said, “An ingenious and original picture story in which a small boy out for a walk–happily with crayon in hand–draws himself some wonderful adventures. A little book that will be loved.”

The New York Times Book Review agreed with, “Do we look at art to learn things, or to feel things? I’d vote for feeling, and that’s why the art book I most recommend is Harold and the Purple Crayon.”

Bird, E. (2012, June 14). Top 100 Picture Books #16: Harold and the purple crayon by Crocket Johnson [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://blogs.slj.com/afuse8production/2012/06/14/top-100-childrens-novels-16-harold-and-the-purple-crayon-by-crockett-johnson/#_

Library Uses: This book could be used in the library to start a unit on drawing and art.  Harold's drawing are simple and many artist start out that way.  It would also be fun to talk about imagination with this book.

Module 1: Corduroy

Book Summary:  A bear sitting on a store shelf is seen by a little girl who wants to buy him, but her mother says not right now and look he is missing a button.  So Corduroy goes on an adventure that night looking for his button and is caught by the night watchman.  He is then placed back on the shelf where the little girl finds him the next morning, buys him, takes him home, and fixes his button.


APA Reference: Freeman, D. (1968). Corduroy. New York, NY: Scholastic Inc.

Impressions: I am not really sure when and where this book was picked up for my sons book collection but it is one of our most loved favorites.  It is most definitely a good go to bed time story that both my son and I enjoy. Corduroy shows kids how important friends can be.  It is so sweet how much the little girl loves the teddy bear with the missing button.  She loves him so much that she fixes his overalls, gives him a home, and someone to call a friend.  I really like how the little girl goes back and buys the bear with her own money.  This shows kids the importance of buying things with their own money and how when they do it means so much more to them.  The book is well illustrated with simple pictures that coordinate well with the story and help the reader understand the story.  

Professional Review: 

Top 100 Picture Books #22: Corduroy by Donald Freeman

JUNE 11, 2012 BY ELIZABETH BIRD

#22 Corduroy by Donald Freeman (1976)
64 points

A classic that never grows old. – Jennifer Wharton

The kids want a puppy this summer. Selected name is Corduroy. Enough said. – Angela Gillette

I have a theory regarding this bear.  Why do we all find him so cute?  One word: Overalls.  Overalls are adorable, and not just in a Dexy’s Midnight Runners kind of way.

The publisher’s description of the plot reads, “Corduroy has been on the department store shelf for a long time. Yet as soon as Lisa sees him, she knows that he’s the bear she’s always wanted. Her mother, though, thinks he’s a little shopworn-he’s even missing a button! Still, Corduroy knows that with a bit of work, he can tidy himself up and be just the bear for Lisa. And where better to start than with a quick search through the department store for a new button!”

If you want to know the background behind this story there’s a wonderful page on Freeman’s website.  Said Freeman himself of the book, “Of course I can’t remember exactly how it started, but I do recall wanting to do a story about a department store in which a character wanders around at night after the doors close. Then I also wanted the story to show the vast difference between the luxury of a department store [and] the simple life [most people live].”  I find that fascinating.  An examination of class in a subtle fashion within the pages of a seemingly simple book.

One of the other things I love about Corduroy’s creator is how he came to become an artist in the first place.  From the man’s biography on that same website: “Freeman supported himself by working as a dance band musician at night, playing the trumpet in nightclubs and at wedding receptions. One night, on his way home from work, Freeman lost his trumpet on the subway. After that incident he decided it was time to concentrate on making a living from his sketches.”  How does one lose a trumpet on the subway, exactly?  And is Freeman’s trumpet still squirreled away somewhere in the deep dark recesses of the New York Metro Transit’s lost and found?

By the way, remember our discussion of Kay Thompson who wrote the Eloise books?  Don dida sketch of her once.  Whoo boy.

One of the notable things about this book is that the little girl Corduroy ends up with isn’t white, a fact that doesn’t garner a lot of discussion.  Originally written in 1976, this wasn’t necessarily groundbreaking, but it was rare enough to stand out in the field.  It’s something I’ve always respected about this story, even if the both didn’t cross my path very often as a kid.

FYI, Don Freeman’s website?  Awesome.  Now there’s a site I wouldn’t mind emulating.  The man is dead and he STILL has a blog!  Okay, fine.  His son Roy runs it.  But it’s pretty darn amazing.  You can also follow this link to a podcast Roy gave to Susan Raab at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair in March 2009 about Don, Corduroy, and various other Freeman-related matters.

Corduroy did get his own movie.  There’s an old filmstrip my library would show every once in a while that was a terribly frightening combination of puppet and full-sized dude in Corduroy costume on a set built to make him look small.  And yes, part of it at least is available on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4oQ6W_Tr6A&feature=embed

Was there an animated Saturday morning cartoon show?  In a word: Duh.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29ExIdvXwY0&feature=embed

Bird, E. (2012, June 11). Top 100 Picture Books #22: Corduroy by Donald Freeman [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://blogs.slj.com/afuse8production/2012/06/11/top-100-picture-books-22-corduroy-by-donald-freeman/

Library Uses: This book could be used in a library as a part of a lesson about friendship.  It could also be used as a lead into a sensory lesson that had to do with feel.