You never forget your first true love...
Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson.
I have owned copies of Harold and the Purple Crayon my entire life.
Like all first things, the memories have become blurred over time. It is, sadly, impossible for me to actually remember with any clarity my emotions of over (ahem) a half century ago. What I know to be true is that Harold was a constant, a loyal, a no judgement companion whose adventures I could share whenever I wanted or needed.
Harold had a purple crayon, but whether or not it was Harold or the crayon drawing, well, I'm not so sure on the answer to that. But it was Harold who held the crayon, and Harold who drew his world with that crayon. What that crayon can represent is entirely up to the reader.
As an adult, this is what I think appealed to me as a child.
Harold called the shots.
Not his parents, or his teachers, or his siblings, or the kids at school. In fact, the only adult who made an appearance was a policeman, drawn by Harold himself. And that adult didn't solve anything, he just pointed Harold into the same direction he was already heading.
Harold called the shots.
And, Harold made mistakes. Lots of them. The frightening dragon the caused Harold to plunge into the sea. The too tall mountain that sent him spiraling through the air. The crowded tall buildings that obscured his way home.
But Harold solved them all, with a boat, a hot air balloon, and a sketch of the moon to bring him home.
One of the great literary themes: to find a way home. Homer's Odyssey needed 12,000 plus lines. Crockett Johnson pulled it off in sixty-one pages, six hundred and fifty words, and three colors.
I think there's a bit of genius in that.
Harold and the Purple Crayon, in my opinion, is one of the true rarities of children's literature: a classic. It worked sixty years ago, it worked thirty years ago, it works today, and it will work in all of the years in the future.
The author and illustrator of Harold and the Purple Crayon was Crockett Johnson, born David Johnson Leisk in 1906. I knew very little about him until I wrote this post. An excellent source of information is the book Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss: How an Unlikely Couple Found Love, Dodged the FBI, and Transformed Children's Literature by Philip Nel. I am posting the author's webpage here. The following short biography is gleaned from that source.
Crockett Johnson was born David Johnson Leisk in 1906 in New York City. He studied art at Cooper Union and New York University, worked a variety of jobs that included advertising, and stood over six feet tall. He was bald, just like Harold, and Barnaby, his famous cartoon strip character.
Crockett was deeply affected by the plight of the common man during the Great Depression. He was a member of the Book and Magazine Writers Union, and became professionally involved in the Communist Party publication New Masses. Later, he also drew comic strips for Collier's, and from that, the Barnaby comic strip.
In 1943 he married Ruth Krauss, the author of A Hole is to Dig, illustrated by Maurice Sendak, and other works. Johnson and Krauss were friends and mentors of Maurice Sendak, who was a frequent visitor at their home in Connecticut.
During the last ten years of his life, Crockett created over one hundred mathematical paintings based on James Newman's The World of Mathematics and other works.
Crockett Johnson died in 1975.
Aside #1
When I started this blog, my goal was to bring into the spotlight older children's books that could still be read and enjoyed by today's children. Not all books, as every librarian knows, age well. But, others do, and I didn't want those books to get lumped in with the former based only on their publication date. My focus was on providing information that would be helpful to school librarians.
Personal circumstances in 2016 - life has a way of happening, does it not? - directed my time and energies elsewhere, and I only recently decided to try and start up the blog again.
My focus is still to provide information, particularly in view of the increased efforts by certain groups to police what others are allowed and not allowed to read, or even to access. I won't be compiling lists anymore, though. I am done with "charting progress" forever. Those of you who work in education will know exactly what I mean.
As far as a timeline for posts? I'll try for every two weeks, and see how that goes.
Take care.
