The Day the Crayons Quit

One day as Duncan goes to pull out his crayons for coloring, he find a stack of letters instead. Each letter is written by a different colored crayon. Their reasons vary (red does too much work on holidays, beige feels overshadowed by brown, pink is ignored as a girl's color, orange and yellow argue over the true color of the sun), but the message is the same: they are DONE with coloring.

As of last week, The Day the Crayons Quit has been published for a whole year and has spent the entire time on the New York Times bestseller list. At first read-through, it's easy to see why. The illustrations are quirky, simple, and cute in that way that is stylistically popular right now. The text is humorous and engaging. There's just enough wit to appeal to a variety of ages from preschool to middle elementary ages AND, this is a big bonus, it's witty enough that parents won't mind reading again and again to a demanding cherub who can't get enough of the peach crayon's embarrassment over having his clothes paper peeled off. (Thirty-six times in one day at this house is the current record.)

You can find The Day the Crayons Quit in the Picture Books - About Art section of The Book Children Store.