[BOOK REVIEW] The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt

Title:  The Day the Crayons Quit

Author:  Drew Daywalt

Artist:  Oliver Jeffers

Genre:  Art / Protest / Humor

Year Published: 2013

Year Read:  2015

Publisher:  Philomel Books 

Source:  Library

Content Rating:  Ages 5+ (Nothing Objectionable)

Now, I have been looking around for some picture books that were heavily raved about by various readers and I just happened to stumble upon this unique book called “The Day the Crayons Quit” by Drew Daywalt along with illustrations by Oliver Jeffers.  Honestly, this book was truly creative and interesting to read all the way through!

 

One day in class, Duncan decided to take out his crayons to start drawing a picture when he suddenly got a stack of letters that were all address to him.  When Duncan started reading the letters, he realized that all of his crayons were complaining to him about either how little he uses them or how much he uses them for his drawings and that they want to be treated better.

How can Duncan make the crayons feel better?

Read this book to find out!

 

I have to say that this book was pretty interesting for a book about crayons and I really loved the way that Drew Daywalt wrote the story as the story is told mostly through the letters written by the crayons and how they are complaining to Duncan, the little boy, about how they are not treated fairly and that they want to be used a bit better whenever Duncan does his drawings.  I also loved the fact that we actually have a children’s story that has the characters actually protesting against being treated unfairly and yet, make that into a fun experience for small children who enjoy drawing things with their crayons.  That aspect of the book makes the story extremely interesting and creative to read and I think that this book would help children be more creative with their own ideas on either writing stories or drawing pictures.  Oliver Jeffers’ artwork is truly creative and cute to look at, especially of the various drawings done by the crayons as they look extremely childlike and yet they express the concerns that the crayons have with Duncan, such as the image of the Gray Crayon being upset at having to draw large animals like elephants, rhinoceroses and humpback whales and you can see the large childlike drawings of those animals at the right side of the page, while the gray crayon looks small and frightened by these animals.

The reason why I gave this book a four star rating was because even though the story was pretty interesting, the letters that the crayons wrote to Duncan tend to be extremely long and it made me a bit frustrated since I think that the humor in the letters still would have been there, if they were to shorten the letters down to a few sentences and still get the crayons’ points across.

 

Overall, “The Day the Crayons Quit” is an extremely interesting and creative story about how children can use their imaginations to create something gorgeous and creative for their artwork!  I would recommend this book to children ages five and up since the Crayons’ letters might be a bit too long for smaller children.