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Harold & The Purple Crayon
Harold & The Purple Crayon
Harold & The Purple Crayon
Audiobook7 minutes

Harold & The Purple Crayon

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

4.5/5

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About this audiobook

This is the ingeniously imaginative story of a small boy who, with his magic crayon, draws himself in and out of a series of adventures.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateJan 1, 1969
ISBN9780545690249
Harold & The Purple Crayon
Author

Crockett Johnson

Crockett Johnson (1906–1975) was the writer and illustrator of over twenty books for children, including the beloved classic Harold and the Purple Crayon, six subsequent adventures starring Harold, and The Carrot Seed, written by his wife, Ruth Krauss. He was also the creator of the groundbreaking Barnaby, one of the most influential and ingenious comic strips of the twentieth century.

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Reviews for Harold & The Purple Crayon

Rating: 4.284048101730625 out of 5 stars
4.5/5

1,329 ratings83 reviews

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Cute children’s book.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A metaphor for life--find different messages every time you read it, depending on the phase of your life at the time. It's like reading tarot....
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This book shows what one armed with an imagination and a purple crayon can achieve.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Adorable story, appropriate for toddlers. Harold draws his universe with a crayon. Encourages imagination, artistic expression, making life what you want.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This book is about a young boy named, Harold, who draws with his purple crayon. He draws up an adventure for himself where he ends in his bed, ready to sleep. This is a good fantasy because it isn't possible to draw up all these things and live in the adventure with a crayon. I would use this for primary and intermediate readers.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Cute little story about a little boy with a big imagination. My son loved it.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This adorable book is about a young boy named Harold who is creating his own story with a crayon. This would be a good starter for a project that allows students to explore their own thoughts and the expansive ideas that they have. This would be appropriate for students under first grade.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I remember the day my father discovered this book. I had read it as a child and loved it. Of course, I bought all the Harolds for my children. And of course they loved them. One day though my father picked Harold up to divert my son. Now my father is a high ranking army officer, a genius, a practical man, a man of authority... In other words, not the type you would expect to swoon over a a near wordless book, but he did. Harold and His Purple Crayon is pure magic at its simple best.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Finally read this, and understand why it gets talked about so much.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Harold takes his purple crayon and draws himself into and out of adventures. This is an adorable book for infants and toddlers. Just like Harold they can have adventures while being safe at home. Just keep the crayons out of reach. Absolutely delightful!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Hidden within the wonderfully imaginative story of an insomniac toddler who gets out of bed and goes wandering around at night armed with a magic crayon is an allegorical retelling of Books 1-6 of Vergil's Aeneid. It is marvelous and adorable and disquieting.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Summary: Harold is a boy with a magical purple crayon that makes whatever he draws come to life.Personal connection: The illustrations in this book were really nicely done and the concept of the story was very different.Class use: Have students pick an object that if they could give it magic powers what would it be and why.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    In my opinion this is a wonderful book! One reason I liked the book is because the language is consistently descriptive. Take the line: "The sandy beach reminded Harold of picnics. And the thoughts of picnics made him hungry," for example. It is descriptive in describing the beach as sandy, it also IS descriptive in the sense of Harold's emotions. Descriptive language is not a minimal trait as I read this story.Another reason I liked this book is because of how smoothly the author transitioned between each line in the story. An example of this is: "It was a terribly frightening dragon....It even frightened Harold. He backed away." The pattern of this writing came across to me as very stylistic and gives the book a very positive effect by doing this.Other elements such as the pace of the plot, the flow, engaging wiring, these all just made Harold and the Purple Crayon a candidate for a book in my own classroom in the years to come. Illustration wise, it is simply done. However I think that anything other than simple would have overdone the book, because of how the writing flowed. The simplistic drawings all done in purple fit the book just right, in my opinion.All in all the main message of the story was that imagination is wonderful, and can get your thoughts running. Harold's imagination created a whole developed story, and it just goes to show that imagination can go a long way. I would indeed recommend this book as just a light and care-free read, I think kids would really enjoy it as such!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I really liked this book for its illustrations and creative writing. Its big idea was that imagination can create a lot with a purple crayon. Harold wandering out of his house one night and went on adventures with his crayon. The writing was organized, and the character of Harold was believable. The book pushes readers to believe in their imagination, and is a wonderful story for creativity and esteem.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I used to love this book as a kid. I loved the length of the book. It was so big, but only had a sentence or two on the page. When I was reading it, I felt like I was super smart. This book is about a little boy with a purple crayon. He goes off into the midnight armed with a purple crayon. Along the way, he creates landmarks to prevent him from getting lost along the way. I liked this book because the main character was a little boy who I could relate to. He was adventurous and creative. Another reason liked this book was because his drawing were now perfectly done. It made me feel like I could draw like Harold and make awesome creations. As a child, I also liked this book because my favorite color is purple. The setting of the book is one of the things that drew me into the story. Throughout the story, Harold creates the setting with his crayon.The main idea of this book for me, is to be creative and use your imagination. Let yourself create worlds of your own.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    After reading this book I feel that it is a good book because it takes you on a journey with this little boy that he is making up through out the entire book. Whatever the boy Harold thinks up that he wants to do along his walk he draws with his purple crayon and it becomes real and what he is doing.I like this book because it shows people that you can use your own imagination to go anywhere you want to go without actually going anywhere. In the book this is shown by the boy in the book using his purple crayon to draw where he wants to go on his journey by using his imagination. Another reason I like this book is that why the boy is on his journey he draws things that are not only make believe but also could be in real life, such as when the boy draws a apple tree but then draws a dragon to protect the tree so no one will eat the apples off it. Over all this is a good book because its enjoyable to read and shows you how to use your imagination.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Love this book with all my heart.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This book is too cute. It gives children a sense of imagination, and lets them know you can create many things, even with just a purple crayon. I remember reading this as a child, and rereading to my niece and nephew was a great trip through memory lane! They loved it! After reading they asked me if they could draw with crayons, and I thought wow! That could be a perfect activity for the classroom! See how many things children could come up with! Great read!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Summary:"One night, after thinking it over for some time, Harold decided to go for a walk in the moonlight." Armed only with an oversized purple crayon, young Harold draws himself a landscape full of wonder and excitement. Personal Reaction:Full of funny twists and surprises, this joyful story shows just how far your imagination can take you. I really enjoyed this book. I also enjoyed reading this to my youngest daughter.Classroom extension:1. In classroom, this book will let my students imagination run at the glimpse of what possibilities there are if given a blank piece of paper and one crayon to draw and it teaches not to draw on walls.2. In addition, I would tell them how God had a blank slate when he created earth and us. God's imagination ran with all the possibilities. But he had a design.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I really liked reading Harold and the Purple Crayon. This book is all about Harold and I really like his character and how he is in this book. It all starts off with him just wanting to go on a walk and Harold continues to draw on throughout this book what he needs and what he wants to do. For a young looking character, Harold really thinks through what he needs to draw. I like the illustrations because though they are simple, on every page we see Harold in the process of drawing his next big thing using his purple crayon. I think that the author's message is to get children to use their imagination; if they can dream it they can do it.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I loved reading this book. This book is all about a little boy with a huge imagination. I think it would be good to read to kids to help them explore their imaginations and it would be easy to do activites related to it, such as asking them to draw what kids of adventures they woud like to go on like Harold did.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson is eighteen years older than I am but I will always associate it (and the other books that followed) with my early childhood. When I was first setting up this website (way before the word blog had been coined) one of my first posts was a review of the Harold series. I've since taken down that page but you can probably find it cached on the Way Back Machine. Since then I've had two kids of my own and they have discovered the Harold books. So with renewed interest in my old favorite series, I am re-reviewing them.Harold is an artist boy of undetermined age but probably preschool aged from the way he's drawn. He has a fondness for purple and his entire world is created in three colors only: white black (his outline and the text) and mostly purple (which Harold uses to create his world on his night time explorations).In this first book, Harold's drawings move and radiate off a single line that defines the horizon. The moon is always there to show that it's night and to give a hint at Harold's location in his walk. Harold adventure is told like a video game sidescroller. It's implied that he's walking across the pages, creating the world as he drags the purple crayon along the paper. Harold may change size relative to the things he draws but he never changes size relative to the page. This fact is called out early in the book when he first draws a road made of lines converging on a varnishing point. Since he can't walk into the page the road is useless to him.In attention and accidents alter Harold's world. A loosely held crayon results in bumpy lines which in turn become the waves of the sea. A line going up the page becomes a mountain and stopping the line creates a cliff to fall off. In all of this, Harold seems unaware at first that he holds the key to finding his way home, no matter how lost he may become.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Harold decides go for a walk with his purple crayon in hand, which he uses to create a whole new world. This clever book, a classic, is about a young boy with a big imagination who goes on an adventure that he creates with his purple crayon.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    When Harold decides that he wants to go for a walk in the moonlight, the youngster doesn't allow the lack of either moon or path to stand in his way. Taking his magical purple crayon, he creates them both, drawing the world into existence around him, as he proceeds from adventure to adventure. Falling into the sea, but then drawing himself a sailing boat; plummeting off a one-sided mountain, but creating a hot-air balloon in mid-tumble - Harold has everything he needs in his purple crayon...Originally published in 1955, this classic picture-book for younger children is one of those universally beloved books that I somehow missed, in my own girlhood reading. I'm glad that it was chosen as one of our November titles over in The Picture-Book Club to which I belong, where our theme this month is "Classic Picture-Book Characters," as this gave me the impetus I needed to finally pick it up. What an incredibly perceptive portrait of a child's imaginative process it contains! How true it is that we create the world around us (and not just as children) through our imaginative lives. The starkly minimal artwork here perfectly complements the simple but effective text, which builds the story outward at first - outward into the blank unknown, where Harold has the freedom to be and do anything, safe in the knowledge that his purple crayon (his creative power) will keep him safe - before returning it to the safety of home and of bed. Amusing, clever, perceptive - Harold and the Purple Crayon is children's literature at its best, demonstrating yet again that for those with the true vision, great artistic and intellectual merit can be found in the simple and the small.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Harold's imagination and his purple crayon can get him out of just about anything! Harold draws a boat to get out of the water and draws landmarks to help him find his way home. This tale is certain to spark the imagination of the reader!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Harold and the Purple Crayon has been a favorite of the picture book genre for quite some time, and the reputation is well deserved. In this charming story about creativity, Harold decides to go for a walk in the moonlight. He needs some moon for a moonlight walk, though, so he draws one. He also draws the path, and the field, and the forest he finds. With his wonderful purple crayon, he draws everything he sees and experiences along his journey, mostly by intention, but occasionally by accident. When he draws a dragon to guard the apple tree, he is so frightened by his own invention that his hand shakes, creating water waves into which he stumbles. Good thing he keeps his head and draws a boat. Or when he draws a mountain to look for his house, but trips at the top; he hasn't drawn the other side of the mountain yet, so he is falling through the air, when he thinks about drawing a hot air balloon, and saves himself. Eventually, Harold finds his way back to his own familiar room. He draws up his covers, and falls asleep.Harold's adventures show his creativity and the power of his imagination, which sweep him up so completely that sometimes he's controlling it, and sometimes it's controlling him. Each page uses just a small amount of simple sentences, because the illustrations convey so much of the story. This narrative is perfect for reading aloud, not only because the word count is small, but also because the text is readable. The rhythm is just right, the concise descriptions embed sly humor (drew up the covers, and so on). The subject matter is brilliant - children love to draw. My oldest daughter is in a phase right now where she draws all over the place. The act of creation is a powerful force, and children are especially attuned to this gift. Harold's story, about a boy drawing an entire world around him, is therefore quite appealing. My girls, who are just beginning to sit still for simpler picture books, listen closely to this whole narrative, even though it has more pages than others. I definitely agree with this picture book's standing as a child's classic, and recommend it to families.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Harold and the Purple Crayon is a great book for children. Harold uses his purple crayon to create anything he wants, because it will come to life when he draws it. I like this book and would use it in teaching because it promotes imagination. I would use this book for children ages 4 to 7.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Harold uses his purple crayon and his imagination to go for a little walk. He first draws a moon which follows him on his journey. Harold is always careful never to get lost. He first draws an apple tree and then a dragon to guard it. He then falls into an ocean but Harold's quick thinking drew him a boat. Harold's sequence of adventures made him tiered and on another mission to find his window and bed. He drew a whole city of windows but none of them were his. He then realized that he always saw the moon from his window so he drew one around the moon. He then drew his bed and tucked himself in.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Mom's Rating: Loved this one as a kid, and after reading it again, I still adore it. It's just a lovely little story about the simple joy of your imagination and where it can take you. This is one that I recommend all parents to get a copy of and read it over and over to their kids.Mom's Rating: 10/10Jake's Review: Mom used to read this to me when I was little and it was cute. It's a little boring for me now and the pictures are way too simple, but I think the little midget will like it (Mom's note: that would be his little brother Jesse)Jake's Rating: 8/10
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Crocket Johnson, Harold and the Purple Crayon (DVD), (1955), ScholasticHarold and the Purple Crayon on DVD takes the viewer on a whimsical, imaginative journey. Harold is a toddler who uses his purple crayon to draw his adventures such as escaping a monster and jumping on a boat in the ocean. The animation interprets Harold's story effectively - with Harold continuously drawing and moving from one adventure to the next, just like in the book. However, the screen captioning was off - sometimes it would coincide with the narration, at times it would not be included at all, and quite a few times it would show up quickly then disappear.