Harold

After Reading

Clara has a man in her life: Harold.  He has a purple crayon.  (Purple is one of her favorite colors.  That Harold.  He's no chump--picking some gender-neutral color like red with which to draw moons and moose.)  Joe was never one for Harold and the Purple Crayon, but Clara returns to him again and again.  It's really only because of Clara that Joe has even met Harold.  (Now that Joe has, he is keeping his eye on this Harold character.)

So we read Harold a fair amount these days, and each reading is bookended by some rather charming patter from Birdie.  At the beginning, before Harold has caught sight of Birdie and begins drawing to impress, he's just scribbling away.  Clara: "Scribbles!  This is scribbles!"  Guess which word she's recently learned, Brigade?

Toward the middle, Joe will almost always point out that the balloon Harold draws after falling off the mountain he's drawn, and the attendant basket, is a hot air balloon, not a balloon-basket.  Harold does not actually call his balloon a balloon-basket, though it is also true that he does not call it a hot air balloon.  No favors for Harold from Joe, though.

At the end of Harold's journey, as you may know Dearest Readers, he has found his way back to his bedroom.  Once there, he makes his bed, gets in it, draws up the covers*, and drops his purple crayon on the floor before dropping off to sleep.  Clara: "We don't sleep with crayons!  Only animals!"  (Frankly, this is not such a bad rule for Our Birdie--and Our Hero--to have in mind for a number of years to come.)  Fans, you cannot see Harold's animals, but we've discussed it, and we believe that he has them.  They just aren't pictured.

They might be yellow.  He might need a different crayon.

*This is easily--easily--the book's cleverest line.  Julie always wonders if Crockett wrote the book because he thought up this line first.