The Day the Crayons Quit

Title: The Day the Crayons Quit
Author: Drew Daywalt
Illustrations: Oliver Jeffers
Published: Daywalt, D. (2013). The day the crayons quit. New York: Philomel Books.
Themes: use of colour, letters

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Our story opens when Duncan goes to take out his crayons, but instead he finds some letters. His crayons have run away because they feel mistreated by Duncan. Find out how Duncan gets his crayons to come back!

Can I just start by saying how amazing Jeffers is at these illustrations! They are truly incredible; children will love reading through the pages. Each page is crafted a letter written from the crayon to Duncan -- each letter reveals something about each crayon's unique personality.

Classroom Ideas:
- What a fun introduction this book would be for letter writing! 
- Each letter has strong opinions, why not use this book as an introduction to opinion writing
- Point of view study
- Have students craft a letter from Duncan's point of view? If he going to write a letter to get his crayons back, what would he say?
- Make some text-to-text connections with the books: Harold's Purple Crayon (Johnson), My Crayons Talk (Hubbard) or The Crayon Box that Talked (Derolf)



Have you read this zany book? What would you do with it in your classroom?