Happy Birthday, Crockett Johnson… and Harold!

It is Crockett Johnson’s 118th birthday. It is also very nearly Harold’s 70th birthday. 70 years ago next month, Crockett Johnson sent a dummy of Harold and the Purple Crayon to Ursula Nordstrom, his editor at Harper & Brothers. 69 years ago, the book was published. Let’s celebrate! If you’re anywhere near Kansas City on

His crayon is purple, but is Harold a Black boy? (in The Conversation)

Chris Ware might be the first person I know to suggest that Harold (of Purple Crayon fame) is Black. In the Foreword to the first volume of Barnaby (Fantagraphics, 2013), Ware recalled his own childhood reading of Crockett Johnson’s book: “Harold was black. At least he looked like it to me. Not that this should

Harold and the Purple Crayon movie poster

The Purple Crayon on the Big Screen (in School Library Journal)

Have you been wondering whether to see the new Harold and the Purple Crayon movie? Or perhaps you have been wondering what Crockett Johnson’s biographer thinks about it? As that very person, I am glad to answer both of your questions. And I do, in “The Purple Crayon on the Big Screen,” published in School

How to Draw the World: book trailer

Coming this fall from Oxford University Press, it’s How to Draw the World: Harold and the Purple Crayon, and the Making of a Children’s Classic. That’s right! It’s my small book about Crockett Johnson’s even smaller one. I’ve made a book trailer for it. I’ll share more about the book in the coming months. But