But when he shows his true color it is a thrill to watch him soar. With each blue heart the crayon draws, children can feel the tension of being misunderstood. With themes of friendship and diversity, this Red: A Crayon’s Story picture book by Michael Hall is a favorite in 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade classrooms. The visual details - including the mismatched endpapers - are witty and plentiful. It takes a new friend with a fresh perspective to encourage Red’s natural gifts. He tries to draw strawberries, a stoplight, and cherries, among other rosy objects, with disappointing results. Narrated by a pencil, “Red” is the story of a mislabeled crayon, a little guy whose waxy blue self is covered in a red paper wrapper and no one - not his well-meaning parents, his diligent teachers, his generous grandparents (charming silver and gray nubs), nor his baffled peers - can see past his label. He has done lovely work with picture books’ most basic vocabulary before: shape in “My Heart Is Like a Zoo” and “Perfect Square” and color in “It’s an Orange Aardvark.” He plays with color again in “Red,” but this time Hall has written a deeper story. It’s early in the year for sweeping declarations, but I can’t help myself: “Red: A Crayon’s Story” by Michael Hall will be one of 2015’s sensations in kid lit.
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