Hatch, Leanne. The Brand-New, Never-Used, Perfect Crayons. Illustrated by Leanne Hatch. Margaret Ferguson Books, 2023. 978-0-823-45230-9. Unpaged. $18.99. Grades PreK-2.

Violet is in a store and sees a big box of 84 perfect crayons with every color she will ever need. She dreams of all the things that she can create and draw using all those colors. However, when she gets the crayons home she can’t bring herself to use them. She puts off using them day after day, even when her little sister Marigold asks her if she can use them. Instead, Violet gives Marigold her box of old, broken crayons and Marigold makes drawings with no care. One day, Marigold gets into Violet’s brand new crayons and uses them which makes Violet extremely mad. However this causes Violet to reevaluate her brand-new crayons, and the book ends with the sisters drawing together.

THOUGHTS: This is a sweet story that shows a more realistic sister relationship with a lovely lesson woven throughout the book. This would be a great read aloud for an art class or just as a read aloud to share with a class.

Picture Book