Snap!

PreS-Gr 2—The only thing worse than no crayons to draw with? Broken crayons! So begins this story, in which Evan has a brand new set of crayons that were perfect in every way—until the brown crayon snaps in two. Frustrated, he tries willing the pieces back together and taping them, to no avail. But then Evan realizes that two brown crayons are better than one—and he uses his imagination and stubs to begin drawing. When other crayons break and snap into multiple pieces, Evan continues creating with smudges, spots, and even rubbings of objects underneath his paper. When the green crayon falls into a crack in the staircase, Evan scribbles with his other crayons, realizing when the blue and yellow drawings crossed, "there was green." Petricic's illustrations are twofold—capturing the look and feel of a child's drawings through Evan. The sketched outlines, shaded with the primary colors found in a basic crayon set, effectively demonstrate Evan's creative imagination. And when his crayons become too small for art, Evan realizes that he can turn "an ending into a beginning" by using his page of artwork to create something new—a paper airplane.