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“The Day the Crayons Quit” is a story about a boy named Duncan who just wants to color with his box of crayons but what he finds inside the crayon box are letters from each of his crayons all saying that they are fed up and quit! One crayon is upset he’s being used too much, one crayon is upset that he always works holidays, one crayon is always mistaken for the wrong color, etc. Each crayon’s plea to Duncan, is creative and humorous. At the end of the story, Duncan finds a creative way to bring all the crayons back together and make them happy again.

About the Author / Illustrator:

The author, Drew Daywalt, grew up in Hudson, Ohio (just south of Cleveland) and is also a filmmaker. According to his website, he has written for Disney and Universal on Pumba & Timon, Buzz Lightyear and Woody Woodpecker. This book was his debut as an author and was written in 2013 and hit the New York Times Best Seller list for a year. He has written a couple sequel books to this one as well as other books that you can find on his website.

The illustrator, Oliver Jeffers, is also an author. He is originally from Northern Ireland, where, as he says, storytelling is incredibly important. He actually made a short movie about himself which is equally interesting and fun. It explains how he writes and illustrates his books.

Together, I can see how both were truly a dynamic duo in creating this book.

What we LOVED about this book:

• This book is so incredibly creative, adorable and absolutely hilarious. My kids request that we read this book over and over and over.
• There are some children’s books, as a parent, that you dread reading over and over again. This IS NOT one of those books! I love reading this book multiple times. As an adult, I can relate to so many of the crayons in this book and it reminds me of people I know or feelings I’ve experienced in my lifetime in a very humorous way.
• It really brings out a child’s imagination! Whenever my children find a crayon without it’s wrapping, they immediately think about the letter from poor ‘Peach Crayon’ and laugh hysterically about his letter explaining how upset he was about his missing wrapping (image below from that page).
• This book emphasizes the importance of social emotional skills, creativity and sharing with a really great resolution at the end of the story.
• The letters and the images are written and drawn in a child-like way so the images alone had their attention.

In life and in the STEAM fields, children must be creative and have excellent social emotional skills to not only express their feelings, but also to interpret and understand the feelings of others in order to problem solve effectively and offer a successful solution.

I highly recommend this book to all parents of young children! If you are still unsure, just check out the over 6000 book reviews on Amazon!

-Kristen