Summer Reading – Day 17! Crayon Revolt!

The Day the Crayons Quit – by Drew Daywalt and illustrated by the great Oliver Jeffers is a laugh out loud book about what happens one day when Duncan goes to colour and discovers his crayons have quit!  Instead of crayons, he discovers a stack of letters written by each of his crayons, expressing their complaints and reasons why they are quitting:  Black is fed up of being used just for outlining; Blue has been worn to a stump and is  tired of only being used to color oceans;  Green is satisfied with his workload of coloring trees, crocodiles and frogs but wants Duncan to stop the fighting between red and orange.  Beige is tired of being treated as a “second” to Brown.  Sooo funny – for adults as well as kids!  Each page features the actual letter from each crayon, expressing themselves in their own unique way and accompanied by some of Duncan’s drawings.  This book is original, clever and hilarious!  (and it makes me jealous that I didn’t think of the idea first!)

Now many things make me happy but finding a book that fits PERFECTLY with a lesson is high up there on my happy meter! And it just so happens that I am knee deep in writing my new book (Nonfiction Writing Power) and searching for anchor books for different forms of nonfiction writing.  Hello?  Could there be a more perfect book for PERSUASION?  I got so excited when I first saw this book and realized it was written as a collection of persuasive letters (who cares if the letters are written by crayons!) I did a happy dance right there in the book store! Each letter models a form of persuasive writing that expresses an opinion with the intention of promoting action or change from the reader. I’m already visualizing students choosing the voice of a crayon and writing their own letters!  I can’t wait to share this book at my workshops!  I’m predicting it will be on the top of every teacher’s “must have” list by the end of September.  (I hope they printed lots of copies!)