"Red: A Crayon's Story" by Michael Hall

While at the Uni High Library, I stumbled upon a book that immediately caught my eyes, due to it being so different from the other ones on the shelf. That book was called “Red: A Crayon’s Story” and was written by Michael Hall. The story follows a crayon with a red label, who is unable to draw the way the other crayons expect them to, no matter how hard the “red” crayon tries. Ants, cherries, strawberries, and everything else comes out blue and “everyone [seems] to have something to say.” Thankfully, however, the “red” crayon is able to embrace their drawings, and is duly praised for them, after a berry crayon asks the “red” crayon to draw a blue ocean.

Michael Hall’s book, although a children’s story, is quite deep. Through the personified crayons in the work, the author portrays that we should embrace our differences and except ourselves, and that we are not what we seem, regardless of what society tells us to be. In Hall’s work, the “red” crayon’s red label symbolizes what we are expected and seem to be. The blue base of the crayon, on the other hand, represents our inner differences. It isn’t until the “red” crayon learns to except their inner self and ignore their label, as well as the other crayons’ pressure, that the “red” crayon is truly able to flourish.

It isn’t just the powerful message that makes this story so wonderful. It’s also the simple yet clever writing and illustrations, and the fact that size of the crayons corresponds to their “age.” Typically, I would go on to mention the downsides of this book, but honestly, there really are none. Everything is perfect. Because of this, I would give “Red: A Crayon’s Story” a 5/5. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this book to anyone, but in the odd situation that I was choosing out a children’s story for someone, I would certainly choose this one.

-Yusef Aboukhatwa