Module 6: The Day the Crayons Quit

Summary:
One day when a young boy named Duncan opens his box of crayons, he finds letters from each of them explaining why they are quitting.  Each crayon has a unique complaint detailing why they are on strike.

Reference:

Daywalt, D. (2013). The day the crayons quit. New York, NY: The Penguin Group.

Impressions:
This book is truly laugh out loud funny. When reading it with young children, they giggle throughout the story. Daywalt did an excellent job of creating memorable personalities for each crayon. It's these personalities that make this book an instant classic that will beg to be read and re-read. The letter format also makes this book an excellent tool for teaching letter format to young learners.

Professional Review:

"Duncan wants to draw, but instead of crayons, he finds a stack of letters listing the crayons’ demands in this humorous tale.

Red is overworked, laboring even on holidays. Gray is exhausted from coloring expansive spaces (elephants, rhinos and whales). Black wants to be considered a color-in color, and Peach? He’s naked without his wrapper! This anthropomorphized lot amicably requests workplace changes in hand-lettered writing, explaining their work stoppage to a surprised Duncan. Some are tired, others underutilized, while a few want official titles. With a little creativity and a lot of color, Duncan saves the day. Jeffers delivers energetic and playful illustrations, done in pencil, paint and crayon. The drawings are loose and lively, and with few lines, he makes his characters effectively emote. Clever spreads, such as Duncan’s “white cat in the snow” perfectly capture the crayons’ conundrum, and photographic representations of both the letters and coloring pages offer another layer of texture, lending to the tale’s overall believability.

A comical, fresh look at crayons and color." 

[Review of the book The Day the Crayons Quit]. (May 2013).  Kirkus Reviews. Retrieved from: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/drew-daywalt/day-crayons-quit/

Library Uses:
Invite students to imagine what their crayons would say if they wanted to quit. Give students an outline of a crayon so that they can choose which color they would like to highlight. Then give students a speech bubble to add to the crayon. Students will then need to decide what their crayons will be complaining about and add the complaint to the speech bubble. These crayons would create a nice display outside of the library.