Creepy Crayon! (Creepy Tales!) (Hardcover)
September/October 2022 Kids Indie Next List
“Jasper Rabbit’s not doing well at school. One day, he finds a purple, pointy crayon. Suddenly, all his schoolwork is perfect! Which is increasingly creepy. Jasper’s more than freaked out. He really needs to get rid of the crayon — but how?”
— Ellen Klein, Hooray for Books!, Alexandria, VA
From the team behind the New York Times bestselling Creepy Carrots! and Creepy Pair of Underwear! comes the third in this hilariously spooky series about a young rabbit and his peculiar encounters—featuring a sinister crayon!
Jasper Rabbit has a problem: he is NOT doing well in school. His spelling tests? Disasters. His math quizzes? Frightening to behold. But one day, he finds a crayon lying in the gutter. Purple. Pointy. Perfect. Somehow…it looked happy to see him. And it wants to help.
At first, Jasper is excited. Everything is going great. His spelling is fantastic. His math is stupendous. And best of all, he doesn’t have to do ANY work! But then the crayon starts acting weird. It’s everywhere, and it wants to do everything. And Jasper must find a way to get rid of it before it takes over his life. The only problem? The creepy crayon will not leave.
Peter Brown is the author and illustrator of many bestselling children’s books, including Children Make Terrible Pets, Mr. Tiger Goes Wild, and The Curious Garden. He is also the author of the bestselling middle grade Wild Robot duology. He is the recipient of a Caldecott Honor for Creepy Carrots!, two E.B. White Read Aloud Awards, a New York Times Best Illustrated Children’s Book Award, and a Children’s Choice Book Award for Illustrator of the Year. Peter’s website is PeterBrownStudio.com.
— -Horn Book
"Reynolds’ text might as well be a Rod Serling monologue for its perfectly paced foreboding and unsettling tension, both gentled by lightly ominous humor. Brown goes all in to match with a grayscale palette for everything but the purple crayon—a callback to black-and-white sci-fi thrillers as much as a visual cue for nascent horror readers. Chilling in the best ways."
— -Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Even readers who wouldn’t mind a smart crayon of their own should see the value in that."
— -Booklist