Harold and the purple crayon full text

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Purple crayon | Papmambuk

What is this book about

Harold is a little boy who went on a journey through the white paper. He creates his own world with a purple chalk and starts by drawing the moon. Then he creates a world: roads, trees, sea, mountains, magical purple creatures and toothy monsters, a balloon, a boat with a sail, houses with windows, and even a policeman. And everywhere next to him the moon invariably travels.

At first the boy enjoys the adventure, and then he is looking for his home and cannot find it. Only at the end of the book does he remember that at home he always sees this moon from the window. He draws a window around the moon - and finds himself in his room. Now he can go to sleep on the painted bed, because his walk under the moon has come to an end.

Crockett Johnson wrote a book about baby with purple crayon back in 1955, and readers liked it so much that Crockett Johnson published a couple of dozen more books about baby Harold and his crayon. Based on these books, cartoons and serials are shot, performances are staged, and computer games are invented.

Many writers have taken up the idea of ​​using crayons to add to the world around the character. For example, in Anthony Brown's Bear Hunt (1979), a bear draws something with a magic pencil to escape two hunters. In Aaron Becker's Journey, Adventure, and Return trilogy of silent books, a boy and a girl draw doors to a magical world where miracles happen with colorful crayons.

Characters and props

• A long roll of paper, or several white sheets stacked one after the other.

• Violet crayon.

• A small paper figurine of Harold with a chalk in his hand, copied from the book and cut along the outline. If you draw a figure from two sides, Harold can be rotated left and right.

Harold and the Purple Chalk book from which the character will appear Some of the elements can be drawn and cut in advance: balloon cabin, picnic animals, blanket, boat. You can draw and cut out the moon and high-rise buildings with many windows in advance.

How to Tell a Story on Paper

Hide the paper boy between the pages of Harold and the Purple Chalk and lay out the roll of paper. Have your child call Harold or say the magic words. Let Harold appear right out of the book - shake him out on paper and he'll go on a journey.

This story moves in a linear fashion, like a long roll of paper or several white sheets stacked one after the other. While I was training, I was drawing in a regular album, but then I realized that I needed the continuity of the story, and I remembered what can be drawn on a roll - this is how a feeling of landscape, space, linearity of history and time appears.

Some of the elements I drew in advance and cut out: balloon cabin, picnic animals, blanket. The balloon cabin and blanket cover the baby.

So, Harold gets on the white sheet. He draws the moon, and then the road. Thus begins his journey.

Then he goes on and draws a tree. A monster with sharp teeth appears behind the tree, which frightens the boy.

Harold steps back. His hands are trembling - and so the straight line of the road becomes the surface of the sea. The boy cannot swim and is drowning. I completed the story by drawing bubbles in the water and a shark.

Harold is a resourceful boy: he draws a sailboat and then sails on it.

Soon he decides to go ashore and draws an anchor and a line of land.

Harold is hungry, he draws a blanket and plates of pies.

At first he eats everything himself, but then he decides to invite the animals to the picnic. In the book, it is an elk and a porcupine. We invited the previously drawn animals from the fairy tale "Teremok" to a picnic: a fox, a wolf, a mouse and a hare. But you can also draw animals with purple chalk, as required by history.

After eating, Harold continues the line of the landscape and draws a high mountain, which he climbs.

He does not have time to draw the descent from the mountain and falls.

Harold is not discouraged. He holds the world in his hands. In any situation, he remembers that he can draw anything. He draws a balloon.

Cabin painted on the balloon so that the boy could be inside it.

Then Harold sees the house and remembers his house. He looks into all the windows and wonders where his window is.

Then a huge painted city appears. Houses can be drawn in advance and placed on paper. There must be many houses and many windows in the city in order to have the feeling of being lost as a little boy. When we were drawing with Anya, she added light in the windows with a yellow pencil.

Harold remembers that if he is lost, he needs to find a policeman, and draws him. The policeman tells the boy where to look for his house.

He walks forward and suddenly notices the moon. She always travels with him, wherever he is. I drew a new moon in each of the situations, but you can draw a moon in advance that will move with the boy.

Harold realizes that if he wants to be at home, he must see the moon through his window. He does so and ends up in his room.

He draws a bed and goes to bed, covered with a blanket drawn in advance. He puts the purple crayon next to the crib.

Harold had such a trip under the moon.

At Anya's request, parents came to the room to kiss Harold and tell him a bedtime story.

Anya initiated the second color - yellow. They light up the windows in the houses, the moon and the light of the lamp in Harold's room. Later, I proposed to complete the world, and there were stars, a new balloon in which all the animals fit, a green plane, a beautiful ship with wind-blown sails, a tree and an endless space for travel. The child was fascinated and so was I. Anya drew the moon, water, a ship and a hot air balloon for the first time.

Both the plus and the minus of our "occupation" is that there was no definite end, no boundary. I immediately decided that after the fairy tale about Harold, we would still draw the landscape and the continuation on a long roll of paper. It was difficult to stop, and the child played Harold's travels and the beasts until he had had enough.

We really enjoyed drawing this story on a long roll of paper. The conventionality of the image eliminates perfectionism, because in order for the story to develop in an interesting way, you do not need to draw details and waste time on this. But if you take care that the crayon is sharpened, or draw with a pencil, much will turn out better.

There's a lot to learn from this kid. He does not lose heart, holds the management of life in his hands and is able to look at things from a different angle.

Maria Gornova
Photo by the author

Cartoon in English

Harold and purple chalk. Crockett Johnson - "? Classics in pictures for kids. ? Good for the night, as well as at any other time?

A children's book that you would like to have in your home library.

Another book-find from the bowels of our children's district N2.

I met her for the first time, I had never even seen her mentioned before. I took it, like Karlchen, because of its rather compact size, and here it is for you!

It turns out that this cult book for kids is a children's classic! Terribly popular all over the world and I'm the only one so unenlightened.

Crockett Johnson is one of the most famous American writers and artists. His book about the charming baby Harold, first published in 1955, has long become a cult: cartoons and TV shows are based on it, performances are staged, and computer games are invented. But it was the book Harold, who creates entire worlds with his purple crayon, that won the love of the most demanding audience - kids from two to four years old.

A sort of Herluf Bidstrup for toddlers.

Okay, let's read and cultivate.

So, the story is about baby Harold and his purple ball of chalk. Although, according to my feelings, it is more lilac than purple, but that's not the point.

Little Harold draws his world. He draws from the heart (just like I love), so he believes in this world and saves himself from the troubles he painted.

And creating trouble (or good) for oneself with one's own imagination is one of my favorite human properties. Thought is material and all that...

The book is small, the main meaning in it is clear even without the text, but it still accompanies the illustrations.

Flipping is pleasant, the pages are rough, although thin and translucent.

It was very funny to watch my daughter's emotions while reading.

She was especially perplexed by the situation with the fall from the mountain: sincere misunderstanding and a questioning look.

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