THE DAY THE Crayons Quit – View on Amazon by Drew Daywalt; illustrated by Oliver Jeffers; published (2013) by Philomel

Oh, my God!  The crayons have QUIT!  And there are notes upon notes about how bummed out they truly are!      

“It’s me, Red Crayon,” writes the RED Crayon. “All year long I wear myself out coloring FIRE ENGINES, APPLES, STRAWBERRIES and everything else that’s RED.  I even work on Holidays!” 

“… I’m your favourite crayon for grapes, dragons, and wizards’ hats”  complains the PURPLE Crayon, “but it makes me crazy that so much of my gorgeous color goes outside the lines…”

BEIGE is always second place to Mr. BROWN. GREY would love a shot at coloring more than hippos and humpbacked whales. WHITE is feeling empty, BLACK is but a boring outline, YELLOW and ORANGE have argued about who is the true color of the sun and, sigh, sigh, sigh, BLUE is worn from overuse and PINK and PEACH have their own dilemmas.

Little Duncan just wants to color.  But how to appease those unhappy crayons?  He will have to find a solution and he does indeed (albeit a predictable solution) that makes everyone feel cheered up, including the reader.

The notes are delightfully in keeping with each of the  colors’ personalities. Jeffers has done a fabulous job of childish crayon-drawn illustrations that had me smiling to the end.  If you’re looking for something different, THE DAY THE CRAYONS QUIT is as different as it gets.  In fact, it’s absolutely unique.  But you know, I have a nagging suspicion about my own box of colors so if you’ll please excuse me, there is a little something I have to do….