Harold and the Purple Crayon

Scared Me As A Kid & Bored Me As An Adult

I hated this book when I was a kid. Something about the illustrations and/or story filled me with complete and utter dread - for reasons I can't remember and likely lacked the awareness to process at the time regardless. I buried it at the bottom of my pile of books and offered it up first when choosing books to pass along to younger relatives. I don't know if it gave me nightmares and I don't know what created such a visceral reaction, but I can guess based upon rereading it as an adult.

Harold is an infant who shouldn't be able to process the world how he does. He looks very much like a helpless infant as well, which makes the empty white space around him seem all-consuming. The things he draws with the crayon are his only surroundings. The moon, the ground, the world, even the only other person are constructs of his imagination. He gets lost and can't find his bedroom window, so he creates a new one and a new bed and then curls up to sleep, leaving the suggestion the crayon-world was a horrifying science fiction adventure wherein he truly created monsters and nearly drowned and fell off a mountain he created - not a dream at all. Ironically, I suspect that for a book promoting imagination, the very thing which made me hate it was my own overactive imagination.

As an adult, I just find it unnervingly terrifying for children and dreadfully boring for myself. I don't understand why this is considered such an amazing classic.

I had never really found an interest in reading this book before recently. By a glance I assumed it was about a boy drawing on his walls with a Crayon. It was by chance that we downloaded a sample book app for the Kindle Fire and my toddler has been able to play with a few scenes. As app it is very neat. Then when we got our hands on [b:Harper Collins Treasury Of Picture Book Classics: A Child's First Collection 1157711 HarperCollins Treasury of Picture Book Classics A Child's First Collection Katherine Brown Tegen https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347447886l/1157711.SX50.jpg 1145293] she saw the book fiver for Harold and insisted we read Harold tonight. In the end I'm glad we did. Never had it occurred to me when this book crossed my path over the years that it was really a classic from even before my parents youth. It is so simple in color and design that really the entire thing promotes imagination. It proved to be an enjoyable bedtime story and thinking about it I think I just might be able to come up with some go along activities. I definitely will not mind reading this one again.scheduled: http://creativemadnessmama.com/blog/2012/06/01/harold-and-the-purple-crayon/