How to Draw the World: Harold and the Purple Crayon and the Making of a Children's Classic

by Philip Nel

Overview

A biography of the book that inspired Prince to adopt purple as his signature color, Pulitzer-Prize-winning author Richard Powers to become a writer, and countless other creative people to become artists.

A primer on the art and design of children's picture books, renowned children's literature scholar Philip Nel takes the reader on an illustrated tour through all that made Crockett Johnson's Harold and the Purple Crayon an astonishing success: from Harold's clear line, Johnson's carefully planned improvisation, the Garamond typeface, the real “Harolds” who inspired the title character, how Johnson overcame his editor's initially lukewarm reaction, to the role of the book's three colors (purple, brown, white), and whether or not the tan-hued Harold himself is a child of color.

In a series of microhistories that ripple outward from Harold and the Purple Crayon, 30 brief chapters explore the big ideas behind this small book. Johnson's classic raises questions about the nature of reality; creative expression during the Cold War; the implied audience of children's literature; abstract art versus representational art; and the color of crayons, ink, and people. All of these questions depend upon how children's picture books work--in this case, the apparent invisibility of Johnson's design choices, the limits imposed by the offset color lithography printing process, the history of the crayon, and the book's circulation into the hands of many real children around the world.

This small book explores the pleasures of looking closely. Indeed, picture books are many people's introduction to looking closely. As a portable gallery, the picture book is a democratic art form, requiring only a library card to view. In modeling the pleasures of sustained attention, this book invites you to look closely at art that interests you—picture books, of course, but any kind of art. When you look, listen, or read closely, what questions does the art invite?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780197777596
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	12/06/2024
Series:	Children's Classics Critically
Pages:	184
Sales rank:	490,594
Product dimensions:	5.81(w) x 8.38(h) x 0.75(d)

About the Author

Philip Nel is University Distinguished Professor of English at Kansas State University and the author or co-editor of 13 books, including: Keywords for Children's Literature (with Nina Christensen and Lissa Paul) and a double-biography of the children's writers Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss. His Was the Cat in the Hat Black?: The Hidden Racism of Children's Literature and the Need for Diverse Books was one of the catalysts for Dr. Seuss Enterprises' March 2021 decision to stop publishing six Dr. Seuss books that contain racist imagery.

Table of Contents

Introduction: How to Read Harold
1. A child-sized book
2. “Taking a line for a walk”
3. Carefully Planned Improvisation
4. Type
5. Blurring Boundaries: Art & Life
6. Windows, Part I: Motif & Metaphor
7. “the scourge of crayon vandalism”
8. “I stubbed my toe on Harold and his damned purple crayon”
9. Children's Art
10. Postwar America Embraces Children's Creativity
11. One, Two, Three Dimensions; or, “And the moon went with him”
12. The Moon
13. The Purple Crayon
14. Color, Part I: Why These Four?
15. Narrative & Perspective
16. Humor
17. Windows, Part II: The View from Johnson's Desk
18. Time
19. The Real Harolds
20. Metapictures
21. The Big Picture
22. Where and When Is Harold?
23. Cute!
24. Color, Part II: Is Harold Black?
25. Translating Harold
26. Harold and the Red Crayon?
27. Dream or Nightmare?
28. The End
29. Harold and Me
30. Harold and You
Afterword. Harold in the World
Endnotes

Acknowledgments
Citations for Each Chapter
Works Cited
Index

Editorial Reviews

09/23/2024

Nel (Was the Cat in the Hat Black?), an English professor at Kansas State University, presents a cerebral examination of Crockett Johnson’s Harold and the Purple Crayon series, the first of which was published in 1955. He argues that Johnson’s style and narrative choices were influenced by modernist painter Paul Klee’s art school lectures (collected in the 1925 compilation Pedagogical Sketchbook), pointing out that Klee’s discussion of “how receding railroad tracks persuade the eye to ‘see’ three dimensions” is reflected in a scene from A Picture for Harold’s Room when “Harold steps off the railway he has drawn, and suddenly realizes that his apparent smallness is all a trick of perspective.” Speculating on the inspiration behind the Harold series, Nel suggests that the FBI’s investigation into Johnson’s left-wing political associations might have influenced the book’s veneration of free artistic expression. Elsewhere, Nel offers a thought-provoking exploration of whether Harold’s “tawny skin” constituted an attempt by Johnson to smuggle a subtle pro–civil rights message past his unsympathetic editor. Some of Nel’s assertions are too nebulous to convince, as when he contends that the “most powerful effect” of Harold’s Garamond font “is the invisibility of its legibility,” but Nel’s serious consideration of Johnson’s artistic process makes a strong case that “children’s books are not a lesser art form.” It’s a loving, scholarly ode to a children’s literature classic. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

"Philip Nel's enlightening book, How to Draw the World: Harold and the Purple Crayon, and the Making of a Children's Classic, reads as though Nel himself were using a magic crayon to explore the importance of creativity. His book is a remarkable biography and autobiography, a creative analysis of Crockett Johnson's marvelous works. Nel captures their essence and significance for young and old." — Jack Zipes, Author of Ernst Bloch, The Pugnacious Philosopher of Hope and The Original Bambi: The Story of a Life in the Forest

"Nel praises, properly, Johnson's purple prose and pictures. A perfect book for reading under a purple moon." — Lane Smith, Caldecott Honor winner & author and illustrator of the New York Times bestseller It's a Book

"Harold drew a world of possibilities for all us childhood dreamers. Now Phil Nel draws us into the life of Harold's creator—in all its scribbly contours. A delightful portrait." — Scott McCloud, Author of Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art and Making Comics: Storytelling Secrets of Comics, Manga and Graphic Novels

From the Publisher

2024-09-27
Tracing the backstory of a beloved book.

Nel’s interest in the picture bookHarold and the Purple Crayon began five decades ago, when he encountered the book as a child. In the ensuing decades, he not only wrote a biography of the book’s author, Crockett Johnson, but also aspired to write the current volume, which he calls “a biography of a book.” True to his intent, Nel traces the book’s origins, evolution, and cultural effects, beginning with the premise that picture books should be treated as works of art. He writes, “As one of our earliest aesthetic experiences, picture books shape our perception of what art is and why it matters.” Drawing on the work of scholars like Jean Baudrillard and artists like Paul Klee and Joan Miró, Nel argues that theHarold series was revolutionary not only because it explored the power of imagination, but also because it took children—and their art—seriously. Perhaps most fascinating is Nel’s interrogation of whether or not the protagonist is white: Nel draws on Johnson’s support of the Civil Rights Movement and the perceptions of Black artists like Prince to argue that Harold is not. Like the picture books themselves, Nel’s work is formally inventive, including a series of reflection questions for readers and two blank pages to “pick up your purple crayon, and just start drawing.” At times, the author slips into an academic register, slowing the book’s otherwise steady pace. Overall, though, this is an insightful, lyrical, and profoundly researched read.

An inspired and fascinating look at a popular children’s picture book.

Kirkus Reviews