​Where did all the crayon color names in the story come from? 

The color names at the beginning of the book, when Liza is obsessed with her crayons, come from real Crayola crayons. Check out your crayon box. There are so many more amazing and funny names! Purple Mountain’s Majesty…Jazzberry Jam… Macaroni and Cheese. (Crayola got most of its names from the U.S. Commerce Department's National Bureau of Standards book called Color: Universal Language and Dictionary of Names.) 

 

​What about the names at the end of the book, after Liza discovers color all around her that she can use to make art?

I made them up! Can you come up with any crazy color names? 

 

​Who did the amazing illustrations?

Chad Cameron. Here's his bio in his own words: Chad Cameron's earliest work was rendered in crayon with a crude overhand technique on his bedroom walls. The expressionist body of work came to include drawings on other clean surfaces, his little brother, and a fair attempt at the family cat. This didn't go over well with the critics.

 

​Eventually, the critics sent him away to college. From Washington D.C., to San Francisco (and a few places in between) Chad has learned to play nicely as a freelance illustrator and to stay out of trouble, most of the time. A Day with no Crayons is his fourth picture book.  

Learn more about Chad at www.chadcameron.com

​

Crayon Art Projects

Click here for three fun art projects you can do!

 

Crayon Trivia

Where did crayons come from?

Read a fascinating article on the history of crayons published in Smithsonian Magazine here.

 

​

More Trivia

• Crayola produces nearly 3 billion crayons each year, an average of twelve million daily. That's enough to circle the globe 6 times!

• The average child in the United States will wear down 730 crayons by his or her 10th birthday. That’s more than 11 boxes of 64 crayons! 

• Kids, ages 2-8, spend an average of 28 minutes each day coloring.

• The first box of Crayola crayons was sold in 1903 for a nickel and included the same colors available in the eight-count box today: red, blue, yellow, green, violet, orange, black and brown.

 

​

America’s Favorite Colors

Crayola crayons currently come in 120 colors including 23 reds, 20 greens, 19 blues, 16 purples, 14 oranges, 11 browns, 8 yellows, 2 grays, 2 coppers, 2 blacks, 1 white, 1 gold and 1 silver.  In 2000, more than 25,000 people voted on their favorite Crayola colors. 

The top ten:

Blue

Cerulean

Midnight blue

Aquamarine

Periwinkle

Denim

Blizzard blue

Purple heart

Caribbean green

Cerise

​

​