Book Recommendations: When Crayons Have Feelings, Opinions, and Stories to Tell

Books: The Day the Crayons Quit and The Day the Crayons Came Home
Author: Drew Daywalt
Illustrator: Oliver Jeffers

What happens when a box of crayons decides it has had enough?

One crayon is tired of being overworked. Another feels neglected. Some are frustrated, some feel misunderstood, and others simply want someone to listen.

And suddenly, something as ordinary as a box of crayons becomes an opportunity to talk to children about feelings, fairness, belonging, differences, and being heard.

I love children’s books that make children laugh but also leave us with something worth talking about. These two books do exactly that.

What are these books about?

In The Day the Crayons Quit, Duncan opens his box of crayons only to discover that they have written him letters. Each crayon has something to complain about.

Red is exhausted from colouring so many things. Beige feels overshadowed by Brown. Black wants to be used for more than outlines. Pink wonders why Duncan hardly ever chooses it. And Yellow and Orange are arguing over who should colour the sun.

In The Day the Crayons Came Home, the crayons have more stories to tell. Some have been lost, forgotten, broken, or left in rather unfortunate places. They send Duncan postcards asking for help and, most importantly, a way home.

Both books are funny, imaginative, and wonderfully illustrated. But beneath all that humour are experiences children can recognise.

Why are these books so engaging for children?

The humour is genuinely funny. The complaints are dramatic, sometimes ridiculous, and surprisingly relatable. Children enjoy the idea that their crayons might secretly have opinions about how they are being treated.

Every crayon has a personality. Some are demanding, some are sensitive, some are frustrated, and some simply want to be noticed. Children may find themselves relating to different characters for different reasons.

The illustrations invite curiosity. Oliver Jeffers uses childlike drawings, handwritten letters, postcards, and playful details that make the stories feel personal. Children aren’t just listening to a story; they are discovering messages.

There isn’t always one correct answer. Should a sun always be yellow? Can an elephant be pink? Why should Black only draw outlines? These questions encourage children to think beyond familiar rules and expectations.

And perhaps one of my favourite things about these books is that the crayons don’t all want the same thing. They have different needs, different frustrations, and different ideas of what would make things better.

Just like children.

What makes these books useful for children’s development?

There are several opportunities for learning here, without making the reading experience feel like a lesson.

Emotional literacy: Children can identify frustration, jealousy, loneliness, disappointment, exhaustion, and the need to feel appreciated.

Perspective-taking: The books encourage children to consider how the same situation might feel different to different characters.

Communication and self-advocacy: The crayons express what bothers them, what they need, and what they would like to change. This gives us an opportunity to explore how children can communicate their own needs.

Flexible thinking: Who decided grass must always be green or the sky blue? The books challenge rigid expectations and encourage creativity.

Belonging and inclusion: Some crayons feel overlooked, misunderstood, or forgotten. Their stories open conversations about what it means to be included and valued.

Early literacy: The letters and postcards introduce children to different forms of written communication. They also provide opportunities to explore storytelling, vocabulary, sequencing, and expressive language.

How can educators, therapists, and other professionals use these books?

I would recommend these books not only for classrooms but also for counselling sessions, play-based interventions, social-emotional learning, and individual or small-group work.

For teachers: Use the crayons to discuss fairness, classroom participation, stereotypes, and different learning needs. Children can explore why treating everyone exactly the same does not always mean everyone gets what they need.

For SEN professionals: The stories offer a playful way to discuss differences, preferences, sensory experiences, and self-advocacy. Children can choose a crayon they relate to and explain why, using speech, drawing, pointing, or other communication methods.

For counsellors and play therapists: The crayons can serve as fictional characters through which children explore feelings indirectly. A child who finds it difficult to say, “I feel left out,” may find it easier to talk about Beige Crayon feeling overlooked.

Professionals can use the characters with puppets, drawing materials, role-play, or storytelling. These are opportunities for expression and exploration, not tools for diagnosing or interpreting a child’s emotions.

For speech and language professionals: The letters provide opportunities to practise perspective-taking, describing feelings, explaining reasons, making requests, and developing narrative skills.

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For parents: These books are a reminder that meaningful conversations don’t always need a serious beginning. Sometimes they begin with a child laughing at a crayon stuck to a sock.

Other books worth exploring

Although these two books form the main Crayons storybook series, Drew Daywalt and Oliver Jeffers have also created several companion books featuring the same characters.

• The Crayons’ Book of Numbers — A playful introduction to counting.
• The Crayons’ Book of Colors — Useful for colour recognition, vocabulary, and early learning.
• The Crayons’ Christmas — An interactive holiday-themed book featuring letters, games, and activities.
• The Crayons’ Trick or Treat — A humorous introduction to Halloween greetings and social exchanges.
• The Crayons Love Our Planet — A simple way to introduce environmental awareness and caring for the world around us.
• The Crayons Go Back to School — A playful starting point for conversations about school and returning to familiar routines.

The shorter companion books can be particularly useful for younger children or for sessions where we want to focus on one concept at a time.

Conversations to have while reading

I always encourage adults not to rush through a children’s book just to reach the last page.

Stop. Notice. Ask. Listen.

And let the child lead the conversation.

Here are a few questions worth exploring:

Understanding feelings

• Why do you think Red Crayon is so tired?
• How do you think Beige feels when Brown gets chosen more often?
• Have you ever felt like nobody noticed the work you were doing?

Perspective-taking

• Do you think Yellow or Orange is right about the sun?
• Can two crayons disagree without either one being wrong?
• What could Duncan do to make the crayons feel heard?

Belonging and inclusion

• How do you think the forgotten crayons felt?
• What does it mean to feel left out?
• Does everyone need the same thing to feel happy and included?

Problem-solving and self-expression

• If you could write a letter to Duncan, what would you say?
• What would you do if you were Duncan?
• If your favourite crayon could talk, what might it tell you?

An interactive activity: A Letter From My Crayon

Give the child a box of crayons and invite them to choose one.

Ask them to imagine that their crayon has a story to tell.

What has it experienced? What does it enjoy? What frustrates it? What would it like someone to understand?

Children can draw their crayon’s story, dictate a letter, act it out, or create a conversation between two crayons.

For children who find writing difficult, there is no need to insist on a written response. The purpose is expression, not handwriting.

And if a child simply wants to draw a purple elephant or a green sun, let them.

Sometimes the most meaningful part of an activity is what happens when we stop correcting and start listening.

One final thought

Not every story needs to become a lesson. Not every question needs an answer. And not every child will want to talk about their own feelings.

Sometimes a child just wants to laugh at a silly crayon, and that is valuable too.

But when we read with curiosity, these ordinary moments can become opportunities to understand how children think, what they notice, and what matters to them.

Because sometimes, even a box of crayons can remind us how important it is to feel human