A friend of mine is having a baby next month, which gave me the opportunity to gift her two of my favorite children’s books. One has a very bad word in the title, so I can’t tell you what it is. The other is “Harold and the Purple Crayon” by Crockett Johnson.
I told my friend I remember reading “Harold and the Purple Crayon” when I was little and that it had a huge impact on me. The truth is, I don’t remember large swaths of my life from last week, so it’s unlikely this is true. It doesn’t matter. Pregnant women are the kindest people in the world, and the most forgetful. I’m sure she’s already forgiven me for she-doesn’t-know-what.
But the fact is, every time I reread “Harold and the Purple Crayon,” I am blown away by the ideas behind it. Harold is a bald little boy in a white onesie who, when the book opens, has decided he wants to go for a walk in the moonlight. As far as we know, Harold’s parents have not been informed of his impending solo nighttime stroll – they actually don’t figure into the book at all – but the problem is not that there are no parents. The problem is that there is no moon. And so Harold, being a resourceful and imaginative little boy, picks up his purple crayon and draws one. (He does not, it is worth noting, draw parents.)
Once Harold has his “moon,” he sets out on a journey that is at turns challenging and at turns rewarding. There is a mountain he must climb, an ocean he must cross, a forest to walk through and a picnic to share with the animals he encounters – none of which exist, of course, until he draws them with his purple crayon.
In addition to the many challenges, Harold’s adventure also brings him face to face with a range of emotions: he is frightened by a scary dragon; he is delighted by the picnic, which features nine (count ’em, nine!) of his favorite pies; he is anxious when he gets lost in a city, afraid he’ll never find his old bedroom. In Harold’s final act of self-determination (spoiler alert here) he draws his bedroom window, which he climbs through, then draws his bed, which he gets into, and at last draws the covers, which he pulls up to his chin. Then he goes to sleep.