Children’s book of the week – The Day The Crayons Quit / The Day The Crayons Came Home by Drew Daywalt and Oliver Jeffers

I love reading my children books which challenge conventional thinking and take a quirky twist on the norm – and both The Day The Crayons Quit and The Day The Crayons Came Home do exactly that.

They are lovely picture books with a quirky sense of humour and intriguing illustrations.

The Day The Crayons Quit is about a young boy called Duncan who discovers his crayons are missing and in their place are a number of letters addressed to him.

The crayons have left because they’ve had enough of the way he treats them.

Red complains of being overworked because he’s used so much more than the other colours. Orange and yellow are not speaking because they’ve fallen out over who is the correct colour of the sun. Beige is tired of being in second place to brown. Peach has an embarrassing complaint which I won’t spoil for you but this letter is one of the funniest.

And then Duncan has an idea of how to make things up to them…

It’s a warm and endearing book encouraging creativity and imagination in children; empathy as we listen to how each crayon is feeling; as well as introducing the concept of letter writing too.

Visually it’s lovely to look at. Illustrations come from Oliver Jeffers whose own books such as Lost And Found and The Way Back Home are huge favourites in our house. His pictures really bring to life the book’s concept with letters hand-written by the crayons on one side and child-like drawings from Duncan on the other.

The Day The Crayons Came Home sees the crayons packing their bags and heading off on their adventures because Duncan is not taking good enough care of them. One crayon has been lost down the side of the sofa for two years; one got snapped in half after someone sat on him; one can’t even remember which colour he is after an unfortunate incident being eaten and subsequently puked up by the dog.

Each crayon sends Duncan a postcard letting him know what he’s done to upset them and once again he comes up with a plan to make amends.

Perfect for children aged three to around eight there’s plenty here adults will enjoy too.

The Day The Crayons Quit / The Day The Crayons Came Home by Drew Daywalt and Oliver Jeffers published by Harper Collins RRP £7.99

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