Ask a six year old to draw a sun, and you will find he invariably draws a circle with a few stick-figure sun rays emanating from it. Indeed, ask many adults to draw a sun and this is also the type of sun they will draw. This is not actually drawing in the formal sense but a sort of symbolic messaging.  And this is fine. Simple symbols easily render universal concepts that speaks to a great number of people.  These universal meanings are hard to budge; they are difficult to unmake without great labor. Thus a symbolic sun speaks of light, a tree of life, a dragon of peril, and a mountain of wisdom.  Only a story with many, many words can start to dislodge these images from their universally recognized meanings.  Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson is a picture book about a young boy with a crayon who produces pages of these universal symbols. Laid down in a stark simplicity, the symbols are solid and sure. Rather than new inventions of a young boy with a crayon in hand, they are a reflection of what Harold sees in his world. In drawing these symbols and considering them, Harold becomes a universal “everyman,” or perhaps more accurately an “everychild,” on a journey of discovery of the world and his place in it. He is a boy whose doodling crayon leads him idly away from home, on adventures filled with trials, and to the discovery that what he really wants is to be home. We readers know the story that the symbols Harold encounters are going to tell because we know what the symbols mean.  There is, however, much pleasure in treading familiar paths adorned with familiar symbols with a particular boy whom we have just met and who we find is much like ourselves.

Harold and the Purple Crayon begins with Harold placing a moon in the sky so that he can see. Light guides. It is an old symbol and archetype. Are we to say that Harold has created a moon in his own completely fabricated universe, or are we to say that Harold, the young little sub-creator that he is, is placing a moon in the sky because there is a moon in the sky? Let us take the gentle road and say that it is good to have light by which to see, and that children are great imitators of the world around them. Harold will fill his purple crayon world with what he knows of his own world.

Under the light of the crayon moon, Harold draws himself taking a walk along a straight road. Like most of humanity, Harold and his crayon wander off the straight path. He wanders into a forest where it is harder to find one’s way.  Knowing that forests are dangerous, Harold does not draw a large forest though, and he thereby passes a test. He has kept himself from danger. He draws a small forest with one apple tree. An apple tree means temptation, but our hero is again wise. He knows the apples will be tasty when they are red, and he knows he must wait for them. He does not try to take one now and so has passed another test. He would like to keep the apples for himself though, so he sets a dragon under the tree to guard the apples. Dragons and apple trees are a particularly fierce combination. Our hero finds he has made an error. Perhaps it was the error of drawing the dragon, who traditionally, likes to devour children. Or perhaps the error was trying to keep the apples for himself and not trusting that they would be there for him when they were ripe. Our hero is frightened, and he backs away. And this is his salvation, for in renouncing the apples and fleeing the dragon, he falls into the water which is a symbol of salvation. He thinks fast and knows he needs a boat to navigate these waters. So he draws himself a boat. Perhaps you might call it a barque.

In this boat, Harold traverses the water in the company of the moon. He reaches the beach and there he finds a simple picnic lunch, or rather a superabundant feast of pies. Nine pies to be exact. As in the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit. Has our hero attained love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control? This is probably too much to claim. Yet Harold does know that nine pies are too much for him to eat, and rather than setting a dragon to guard them, he gives them to a very hungry moose and a deserving porcupine. He does not keep the pies for himself as he tried to do with the apples. This time he shares. Another test has been passed.

Our hero now draws a mountain to climb so that he can see higher. He desires to go higher in the hopes of seeing his home, or more specifically, the window of his bedroom which represents his home.  Harold scales the mountain but alas, he slips off as the mountain has no other side. It has no other side, because Harold has not drawn it. Perhaps it is that he cannot draw what he does not know. He is a hero of confidence and creative resourcefulness though, and he draws what he does know or at least what he knows by analogy. He draws a balloon, which looks very much like the moon, and he attaches to that orb a basket to carry him.

His journey now brings him to a home with windows. But it is not his home, and it is not his window. Here is the point in his journey where specificity does begin to matter. He must find not any home; he must find the home that was made for him. He continues on his way, and he draws grand cities as he goes, but none of the cities with all of the windows are his window or home. He cannot think where his window is. A policeman helps point the way, and Harold thanks him, but he was going that way anyway and this guide is not very helpful. Our hero must find his home on his own. Harold seems quite lost until he suddenly remembers what he knows. He knows that his window is always right around the moon.  So Harold draws a window around the moon which has been with him all along lighting his way. Suddenly, he finds that he is home.  Now, it is not that Harold has made himself the creator of the universe by calling light into being in his purple crayon world. It is more that he is inviting the light into the world which he must traverse, and as long as he does that, he will always be at home. Able to identify his home in relation to the moon, Harold finds he can now draw up his bed, drop his crayon, and peacefully drop off to sleep.Harold goes forth in confidence drawing the world he sees and knows. His reflecting on the world around him bring him wisdom. When he strays off the path he will be tested. When he falls, he will be caught.  Always the light will be with him. Harold and the Purple Crayon is a treasured story of the walk we all walk, and Harold is an everychild whose adventure invariably brings us light, encouragement, and comfort. Crocket Johnson frequently wrote for adult audiences on specifically communist themes, but as a writer for children, his use of simplicity and universal symbols outwit the political narrative and raise the story to a lovely place.