Harold's Trip to the Sky (1957)

That creative toddler Harold, who drew his own adventures into being in his first two titles, Harold and the Purple Crayon and Harold's Fairy Tale, returns in this third book devoted to his doings, setting out one dark night on a voyage into space. Overshooting his mark, and missing the moon, Harold lands on Mars instead and, feeling rather lonely in the dark and cold, draws a martian for company. Soon frightened by his own creation, Harold sabotages the martian's flying saucer, before drawing himself a shooting star to ride home...

Every bit as enjoyable as its predecessors, with the same simplicity of story and spareness of artwork - there's just Harold himself, in his blue pajamas, and the purple lines created by his crayon - Harold's Trip to the Sky is a worthy follow up to Crockett Johnson's first two titles about a young boy who creates his own kind of magic, using just his crayon and his imagination. I appreciated the changing color of the paper itself here - white was used in the scenes on earth, while dark brown was used in the space scenes - and I got a chuckle out of some of the story developments. Lines like "Then he remembered how the government has fun on the desert. It shoots off rockets," (and the theme of martians) place the book in a particular historical context, but it's nothing so extreme that contemporary children won't be able to appreciate the story on its own merits, as an imaginary journey to the stars. ( )

Harold wakes up in the middle of the night with his purple crayon and tries to get himself a glass of water. But then his imagination and his purple crayon (and amazingly simple drawing techniques) leads him to a trip out of the planet. Although not as fun as the original book (in my opinion) it's another journey to take with Harold. I think this is best suited for younger children (pre-school, kindergarten aged children).

This is an exceptionally good book for those children who love to draw. You can use it to help guide them to drawing their own night time sky drawings. ( )

Harold saves the day with his purple crayon, drawing on his every resource for adventures. ( )

FROM LIBRARY CATALOG:
Harold travels to the sky with the help of his purple crayon.