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Summary: An absolute tribute to unfettered imagination
Review: "Harold and the Purple Crayon" was one of my favorite books as a child, and I bought a copy the day I found out my wife was pregnant. I've tried a few times to interest my daughter in the book, but it was a bit too sophisticated for a 3-month old! Now that my daughter is three years old, she just pulled out this book from her shelf and asked me to read it to her. She was ready for it, and the magic worked! The story of Harold and his purple crayon drawing anything he can think of is still every bit as entrancing to her as it was to me thirty years ago. In story structure, it's very much like Maurice Sendak's "Where the Wild Things Are," but without the rebelliousness of Max: like Max, Harold goes on an adventure into his imaginary world, and then must find his way home. In short, an excellent classic, deserving of new generations of readers.
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Summary: Celebrating the imagination-- my favorite children's book!
Review: Twenty-five years after I last read the story of "Harold and the Purple Crayon", I picked up the book again to read it to my four-year-old son. He loved it! Several years later, I picked up a copy again to send to my grandson.... what amazed me about both those times (even with the lengthy intervals between them) was that I had forgotten nothing. The pictures were burned into my mind's eye; the text still a part of my memory. I found that I could recite the story of Harold and his crayon without even looking. This is a true celebration of the imagination, and in my opinion the very best children's book ever! It has a profound impact on adults as well as children, and it is infinitely delightful. (I even learned my very first play-on-words/pun from Crockett Johnson's classic (near the end of the book, when Harold "drew up the covers"). "Harold and the Purple Crayon" is the first and by far the best book in Crockett Johnson's "Harold" series, but it is not necessarily Johnson's best work. That distinction is reserved for his old "Barnaby" series of comic book stories, with the memorable Fairy Godfather Mr. O'Malley (hmmmm... come to think of it: Barnaby and Harold look a lot alike-- could they be related?). If you have children emerging from the theatrical threes and heading into the fabulous fours, try them on "Harold and the Purple Crayon". It is a masterpiece of perfect simplicity and imaginative joy!
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Summary: Harold et la differance
Review: Under an everpresent crescent moon, Harold's signifying crayon implies the metacritique immanent in all eschatologies: Outcoding the text beneath him, he at once embraces and negates the subject's death in a meeting of poststructural praxis/(post-)modern framing with narrotological desire. Harold, purple crayon firmly in hand, rises from the smoking ruins of continental thought; but having been "written", will our protagonist find fortitude to "write" his way out of the aporias inherent in a de-centered, post-historical dasein? There is hope....The trace, in erasure of its present presence, loops back from Harold to Johnson, engendering ample clues for resistance to our clinical gaze...But the specter of psychoanalytic eschatology haunts his every gesture. Every slippage is deferred, in its deferral, of Harold's problematized Lacan, leaving no indivisible remainder, defying the fatal strategies of his feints (forgetting Baudrillard) to attempt that final erasure of Derrida's (cottage) industry through a (re)sound(ing) metanarratalogical poetic. Outdistancing at every step all Derridean slippage, Harold's gestures in the dark problematize the infinite substitution and free play within a field of signifiers (themselves privileged signifieds of the wall/not-wall of the enclosing space/page), resisting inevitably all attempts at reconstituting envelopes of perfomative (de-)coding. With startling metaphysical elan, Harold slips the bounds of our logocentric world to inscribe traces of an essentialist foundation light-years beyond the binary opposition (re)inscribed by la differance: beyond Freud, with (in) Freud, with(out) Freud, to be about Freud, forgetting Freud. All in all, this "Harold" represents a remarkably vigorous (re)covery of Saussurean categories. This is no boy scribbling terse graffitos to a lost master narratology; this is the newly minted currency of our retinal field.
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Summary: Good Book for Young Readers, and for Parents to Read Aloud
Review: Most people remember Harold and the Purple Crayon, and wont need to read reviews before buying this for their kids. If you somehow didn't read the Harold books when you were young, you will read many other reviews that say they are great books that have stood the test of time, I agree. The story is simple and easy to follow, the illustrations are equally simple, but the story grabs kids attention. There is something magical about Harold and his adventures, as he draws various things, they become real. It is the magic that sparkles in every child's mind, imagination. Harold is also plucky and resourceful, when he accidentally draws an ocean and falls in, or accidentally leaves a mountain unfinished and falls off, he doesn't panic, but thinks a way out and draws a boat and a hot air balloon to climb into. What a guy! The story is often humorous, a big plus with kids, but not overly so. It has a quiet and calm feel to it, and that combined with the fact that Harold gets tired and goes to bed in the end makes it a wonderful bedtime book. It is also great for young readers (probably Level 2), the words are for the most part short and not too hard. My daughter is a slow reader and has only been reading on her own for about 6 or 7 months and she read this with almost no help, I only had to guide her through a few difficult words. It is a lot of pages for a young reader, but since there is only one or two sentences per page, the story isn't that long. The book also appeals to a wide range of ages, it keeps the attention of my three year old, but doesn't seem like a baby book for my ten year old. I think it stems from the fact that, even though the story is so simple it never once talks down. Adults will also appreciate Harold, even those who don't look on him with fond memories. My husband had never read the book Harold and the Purple Crayon when he was young, after reading it for the first time he chuckled and said "What a great book." If you've never read it, buy it, I am sure you will agree!
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Summary: It's a timeless book. March 20, 2001
Review: Even though this book was written quite a few years ago, it doesn't matter because somethings transcend time. In this book you have a child in a nightgown with a magic purple crayon that can create any environment that is necessary. We all do this each night when we dream...Every page has a 'situation', and the readers look forward to discovering what Harold will draw next with his purple crayon in order to get out of it. My copy is a bit worn because it was one of the 'must read books' that was read to each of my five kids. Enjoy!
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Summary: Harold harold bow-berald, banna fanna foe-ferald...
Review: There's something about Crockett Johnson (real name David Johnson Leisk) that is instantly recognizable. Like Matt Groening of "The Simpsons" fame, Johnson had a particular style of drawing that was both simple and infinitely adaptable. Though he drew the comic strip "Barnabus" and the incredibly simple, "The Carrot Seed", it is "Harold and the Purple Crayon" that won Johnson the fame he has today. The story has been ripped off a million times in a million different ways, but we can all credit this original as the first of the first. All hail that spunky Harold and his oh-so purple crayon.
When we first meet Harold he and his magical purple crayon are already well acquainted. No picture in this book appears that Harold does not draw himself (aside from Harold himself). Our intrepid hero sets off on a series of small adventures that are both intentionally and unintentionally caused by his crayon. Drawing everything from the moon (which makes a point to appear on every single page that Harold finds himself on) to dragons to flying balloons to a policeman, Harold has a gay old time.
Wanna hear a petty complaint? A petty, insignificant, hardly-worth-listening-to complaint? Okay, here goes..... it bothers me that Harold's crayon never gets smaller. By logical extension it should, shouldn't it? Of course, by logical extension I should remember that this is, after all, a MAGIC purple crayon. Maybe magic crayons don't get smaller. Obviously I don't know the rules that govern crayons particularly well. If I did I wouldn't be having these problems. In any case, that's my only objection to this book. It is, I know from personal experience, a heavily adored and respected story. People will carry copies of this book with them all their lives. There is something about Harold and his tiny adventures that speaks to the hearts of millions. If you've never had the pleasure of reading a Crockett Johnson book, this is the place to start. If you have read this book, read it again. It's just that good.
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Summary: Essential for every child's library.
Review: Harold and the Purple Crayon was a favorite of mine when I was a child (in the late 1950's). I was delighted to find it again when my children were born, and it soon became a favorite of theirs. They declared the apple tree to be a donut tree (then pronounced "doe-doe"), and insisted on naming every type of pie on the picnic blanket, every time we read the book! It is now the first book I include in the collection I give as a baby shower gift.
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Summary: Simple yet imaginative
Review: This is a classic. Harold creates his world with just a crayon - very imaginative, and a pleasure to read. The book is small - perfect for little hands. Highly recommended for little ones!
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Summary: Stories to read again and again
Review: I'm now 38 years old, I read a lot as a child and my "Harold and the Purple Crayon" books were read again and again for many years. I was delighted to find this book with all of Crockett Johnson's "Harold and the Purple Crayon" stories in them because I could introduce my nephew and niece to a character and stories I loved. My nephew dove right into the book when I gave it to him and told him how much I loved the same stories when I was his age. Parents, I strongly recommend this book because it's the original stories all in one book, the pictures are simple and engaging, the writing isn't overly complex or simplified, so it helps build reading/spelling skills and vocabulary.
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Summary: GREAT
Review: I LOVE this book! It is soooooo cute! Harold draws everything! I really like the policeman! And the hot air balloon! And how he drew a boat to keep himself from sinking in the sea he drew! The whole book is just soooooo cute! I absolutely love it! You should but it NOW if you don't already have it! I LOVE crayons too! ... My favorite color crayon is Tickle me Pink! And I really like Granny Smith Apple Green too! The names are just so much fun!
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