Harold can’t sleep, so he dreams up his very own fairy tale.
Drawing his way to an enchanted garden, he discovers that the garden is flowerless.
Determined to find out why this should be, Harold draws his way through the mystery until his imagination and his trusty purple crayon conquer all obstacles bring the garden back to life.
Learning Outcomes
No child has ever been a better guide to the world of imagination than Harold!
Every moment of his adventure is an imaginative event that, somehow, surprises even after several readings.
Spending time with Harold is a wonderful way to foster a child’s (or adult’s) imaginative thinking.
Following The Story
- Make your own purple crayon adventure. Take drawing pad and using a purple crayon, begin a story and draw each moment. After few sentences and a drawing or two, turn the page and pass the crayon to your child. Your child continues the tale on a fresh sheet of paper. Keep passing the crayon back and forth, going page-by-page until your story is done.
- You can play a version of the same game without paper and with lots of people. Take a purple crayon and hold it in your hand. Begin a story. When you have gone a little way, pass the story-telling crayon to the next player – who passes it along to the next player. Keep going round and round until the tale is told.
- Harold helps an enchanted garden to thrive. Encourage your child to draw a picture of a perfect garden. Or you might get a plant for your child to tend. It will be your child’s job to water it, check the soil, see that the plant gets enough sunshine.
Story Description
Harold can’t sleep, so he dreams up his very own fairy tale.
Drawing his way through an enchanted garden, he notices how nothing grows in the garden.
It doesn’t look like a garden at all!
Off to the king to find out what’s wrong, Harold draws a castle, but the draw-gate is closed, keeping him out.
Being resourceful, the clever Harold draws a mouse hole to get into the castle to find out that an invisible giant, or witch—or perhaps an invisible giant witch—is to blame.
Harold uses his imagination and purple crayon to draw a story.
What story do you want to draw?
What color crayon will you use?
Full Story Text
One evening Harold got out of bed,
took his purple crayon and the moon along,
and went for a walk in an enchanted garden.
Nothing grew in it. If he hadn’t known
it was an enchanted garden, Harold scarcely
would have called it a garden at all.
To find out what the trouble was,
Harold decided to ask the king.
Kings live in large castles. Harold had to
make sure the castle was big enough
to be the king’s. He didn’t want to waste time
talking to any princes or earls or dukes.
This was a king’s castle all right. It had
tall towers and a big draw-gate to keep out
people the king didn’t want to see.
But when the draw-gate was drawn closed,
it kept Harold out too.
Harold shouted for the king to come down
and let him in. But the gate didn’t open.
He walked along the edge of the enchanted garden
beside the smooth wall of the castle—
until he thought of his purple crayon.
A person smaller than a very small mouse
would be able to get in.
Without even bending, he walked
into a very small mouse hole.
He walked through the mouse hole into the castle.
He invited the mouse in too, but the mouse preferred to stay outside.
As he gazed around inside the big castle,
Harold felt very tiny.
And a king might not pay much attention
to anybody who was smaller than a mouse.
So Harold used his purple crayon again.
He made sure he was as tall as four and a half
steps of stairs, his usual height.
Then he climbed up the stairs,
looking for the king.
He went up and up and up, until he got so tired
he couldn’t climb another step.
Luckily, there were no more steps.
He had reached the top.
He still couldn’t find the king.
But he remembered kings sat on thrones.
The king’s throne looked very comfortable.
Harold thought the king wouldn’t mind
if he rested a few minutes.
He sat on the throne, wondering what
it was like to be a king and wear a crown.
He tried it with the king’s crown.
It was all right for a while,
but the crown began to feel heavy.
So Harold put it on the king’s head.
As he thanked the king for the loan of the crown,
he noticed the king looked sad—
no doubt because of the garden.
He asked the king if the trouble
was due to a witch or a giant.
The king couldn’t say which.
He looked sad and helpless.
Evidently, the giant, or witch—if the king couldn’t tell which it was—was invisible.
But Harold told the king not to worry.
He set off to find the invisible witch
or giant, brandishing his purple crayon.
And—accidentally—it made a hole in the wall.
The accident embarrassed Harold.
But the hole was the handiest way out of the castle,
and he climbed through it.
When he looked down from the other side
of the hole, he realized he had forgotten
how high up he was.
He needed something tall to climb down on,
something as tall as a steeple.
To fill the hole in the castle,
Harold put a handsome and useful clock in it.
He was surprised to see how late it was.
He slid down the steeple
to find the invisible witch or giant right away.
It wasn’t a steeple. It was a pointed hat.
It was a GIANT WITCH.
The purple crayon made it plain—
it was an invisible giant witch.
Well, no wonder nothing grew
in the enchanted garden.
How could anything grow, Harold said to himself,
with a giant witch tramping around with big feet.
Now that he saw what the trouble was,
all Harold had to do was drive the witch
out of the enchanted garden.
Mosquitoes. Mosquitoes, Harold knew,
will drive anybody out of a garden.
The mosquitoes drove out the witch.
They also were driving Harold out of the garden.
He had to make smoke to get rid of the mosquitoes.
And he had once heard somebody say
that where there’s smoke,
there must be fire.
To put out the fire,
he first thought of fire engines.
But he decided to make it rain.
Rain was easier.
The rain soaked everything—Harold too.
But, he said, it’s good for the flowers.
He was right.
Soon there were flowers.
Beautiful flowers popped up
all over the enchanted garden,
more than Harold was able to count,
all in gorgeous bloom.
Harold thought how delighted and happy
the king would be when he looked out
from the castle in the morning.
And then, amazingly, the last flower turned out
to be not a flower at all—but a lovely fairy.
She held out her magic wand as fairies always do
when they’re giving somebody wishes
that will come true.
Harold couldn’t think of a thing to wish for.
But, to be polite, he took one wish
and told the fairy he’d use it later.
Besides, Harold thought,
as he started on his long walk home,
a wish might come in handy sometime.
After all the excitement, he suddenly felt tired,
and he stopped to rest awhile.
He sat on a small rug because the ground
was still somewhat damp from the rain.
And he wished—
he wished the rug was a flying carpet.
At once Harold felt it rise in the air.
It flew fast and high.
But when it went so fast it left the moon behind,
Harold realized he didn’t know how to stop the carpet or even slow it down.
He wished he’d taken two wishes from the fairy,
so he could wish the flying carpet would land.
But he did have his purple crayon.
He landed the flying carpet in his living room,
right behind the high-backed chair
his mother sat in, knitting.
And he asked her to read him a story
before he went back to bed.
