Picture Book Review: The Day The Crayons Quit

THE DAY THE CRAYONS QUIT

by Drew Daywalt 

&

 illustrated by Oliver Jeffers

Pages: 40pages

Publisher: HarperCollins 

Publication Date: August 1st 2013

Summary 

Debut author Drew Daywalt and international bestseller Oliver Jeffers team up to create a colourful solution to a crayon-based crisis in this playful, imaginative story that will have children laughing and playing with their crayons in a whole new way. Poor Duncan just wants to colour in. But when he opens his box of crayons, he only finds letters, all saying the same thing: We quit! Beige is tired of playing second fiddle to Brown, Blue needs a break from colouring in all that water, while Pink just wants to be used.
Green has no complaints, but Orange and Yellow are no longer speaking to each other. The battle lines have been drawn. What is Duncan to do?

Review

"Hey Duncan,

It's me, RED Crayon."

So I don't tend to read children's books and there are three reasons for this. One I'm not a child. Two I don't have a kid or kid brother or sister, niece or nephew, so no one to read them too. And then lastly the fact that I would get some strange looks sitting in Starbucks reading a book of three year olds. So when I walked into Waterstones and my mother pointed out this book I just looked the other way. Then she read one of the letters inside the book and that was it, I needed to buy it. I could pretend and say that it was my mum's idea but I talked her into getting this book and I'm SO glad I did.

The Day The Crayons Quit is a witty and creative little picture book that will give you an insight into the life of a crayon and let me tell you, it's not all rainbows and unicorns. This book is told through a series of letters addressed to a kid named Duncan. The letters are from his crayons, and they tell him just how they feel about it colouring habits.

From the perfectly content Green crayon to a neat Purple being forced to go against what comes naturally to him and colour outside the lines and then there's the bickering Orange and Yellow crayons who both think they're the colour of the sun (personally I think it's Yellow, sorry Orange), this book jam packed with personality and I laughed the whole way through it. Not to mention Oliver Jeffers' beautiful illustrations match Drew Daywalt's characters seamlessly.

Maybe it's just me, but I think there's a real air of brilliance to this picture book. So whether or not you have kids or your just a big kid like me give this book a read. It will brighten up your day and put a smile on your face.

P.S. My favourite crayon is Peach. He should come and live with my crayons!! They're all naked so he'll get on just fine.