by Philip Nel
Crockett Johnson, Barkis, 1955. Reprinted with the permission of the Estate of Ruth Krauss, Stewart I. Edelstein, Executor. All Rights Reserved.
It is tempting to read Harold and the Purple Crayon and its sequels as radical political commentary. The books suggest that the real world can be transformed by the imagination and encourage impulses to explore alternatives to that world, bringing to mind 1960s French student radicals’ slogan, “All power to the imagination.” The imagination, however, is neither radical nor conservative. It is amoral. By allowing us to step outside of morality, the imagination can show us that what does exist is not necessarily what ought to exist or what might exist. Echoing Percy Bysshe Shelley’s notion of the imagination as “the greatest instrument of moral good,” Harold uses his imagination with a sense of moral responsibility. In A Picture for Harold’s Room, Harold needs “rocks to step on” to climb “out of the sea and on to the hill.” Realizing that the ship he drew “was too near the rocks,” Harold “put up a lighthouse to warn the sailors.” When, in Harold and the Purple Crayon, the boy creates more pie than he can eat, he leaves “a very hungry moose and a deserving porcupine to finish” the leftovers. Harold uses his imagination to create new worlds but does so without causing harm. If the purple crayon is radical, it proposes a velvet revolution, not a violent one.15
Crockett Johnson, Harold “kept his wits and his purple crayon,” from Harold and the Purple Crayon (New York: Harper, 1955). Text copyright © 1955 by Crockett Johnson. Copyright © renewed 1983 by Ruth Krauss. Used by permission of HarperCollins Publishers. Reprinted with the permission of the Estate of Ruth Krauss, Stewart I. Edelstein, Executor. All Rights Reserved.
Reviewers did not see the book as radical but noted its emphasis on the imagination. Considering Harold “an ingenious and original little picture story,” the Horn Book’s Virginia Haviland wrote, “This is a little book that will be loved, for Crockett Johnson’s wide-eyed little boy and his simple lines in purple crayon are the kind of illustration to stimulate the imagination. They will suggest similar drawing adventures.” The New York Times’s Ellen Lewis Buell thought the book would “probably start youngsters off on odysseys of their own.”16
It did. Future poet laureate Rita Dove, who was three years old at the time of the book’s publication, has cited Harold as her first favorite book because “it showed me the possibilities of traveling along the line of one’s imagination,” an idea that made “a powerful impression” on her. It was the most memorable childhood book for Chris Van Allsburg, author of The Polar Express (1985) and six when Harold was published, because of both its “theme, which has to do with the power of imagination, the ability to create things with your imagination,” and its succinct presentation of “a fairly elusive idea.”17
When Harold draws a mountain to help him see his bedroom window, he climbs to the top and slips: “And there wasn’t any other side of the mountain. He was falling, in thin air.” As always, his skill at responding to an ever-changing situation saves him: “But, luckily, he kept his wits and his purple crayon. He made a balloon and he grabbed on to it. And he made a basket under the balloon big enough to stand in.” And off he goes again. Just as Harold adapts to shifting power dynamics, so did Crockett Johnson. Out of work and under surveillance, he kept his wits and began to imagine—new comic strips, a better mattress, children’s books. The purple crayon is an imaginative extension of Johnson, who had by then distanced himself from the Communist Party and had worked on Democrat Adlai Stevenson’s 1952 presidential campaign. No matter what the FBI might have thought, Harold’s crayon is definitely purple, not red. In December 1955, Johnson was asked why the crayon was purple. He replied, “Purple is the color of adventure.”18
17
STRIKING OUT INTO NEW AREAS OF EXPERIMENTATION
You can write books about anything.
—RUTH KRAUSS, “How to Write a Book,” in How to Make an Earthquake (1954)
Though pleased by the swift sales and strong reviews of Harold and the Purple Crayon, Crockett Johnson viewed his success from a gently sardonic perspective. In November 1955, his clipping service sent him the Winston-Salem Journal and Sentinel’s single-sentence review by Dave Marion, age four: “Harold can draw whatever he wants with his purple crayon, and then it really is.” Bemused, he passed the clipping along to his editor: “Dear Ursula,” he wrote. “Just in case you missed this—It’s a very good review.”1
Ruth Krauss’s work was getting good reviews, too. An eight-page article in Elementary English proclaimed that she “has probably gone further than any other author in experimenting with the form and content of picture books.” Hailing her as at the vanguard of the “realistic ‘here and now’ type of story,” the piece attempted to define the Krauss aesthetic: “Children are neither cute darlings to be patronized, nor miniature adults to be civilized, but rather lively, well-organized people with … ambitions of their own” who “are fascinated by language” and “have an exuberance and joy in daily living, and an irrepressible sense of the ridiculous which may differ radically from an adult’s idea of what’s funny.” Singling out Krauss’s gifts as a poet, the essay’s author, Anne Martin, said that in A Very Special House, Krauss “has successfully depicted a world of riot, chaos, and confusion by employing a strictly disciplined, rhythmical, almost lyrical style in symmetrical form.” Martin wondered whether Krauss would “continue to work along the lines of I’ll Be You and You’ll Be Me, or perhaps strike out into completely new areas of experimentation.” For children, “a Ruth Krauss book ‘is to look at’ over and over again, to quote from and laugh at and talk about, and even (going along with Sendak’s illustrations) to hug lovingly and to drop off to sleep with.”2
Krauss continued to experiment. Charlotte and the White Horse, published in the fall of 1955, leaves behind the humor of her earlier child-authored stories. Unlike the playful nonsense of Bears, Charlotte’s verse is lyrical, with pictures that Maurice Sendak described as “my first attempt to unite poetry with William Blake.” As the seasons change
the wind and the rains are gone
the grass is coming out of the ground
the leaves are coming out of the trees
the people are coming out of doors.
Though Krauss makes the poetic cadences visible, she also signals that the words come from one of her child acquaintances: the entire text is in quotation marks, with the opening mark appearing before the first word on the first page and the closing mark after the last word on the final page. There is a touch of sadness when the father suggests that Charlotte’s colt “won’t make a good race horse so we will sell him.” Krauss repeats twice, “Now just sorrow is coming in,” and Sendak shows the sad little girl, turning away, looking down. Her father relents, and girl and horse share a tearful embrace.3
Sustained by Sendak’s delicate watercolors, this tale of Charlotte and her colt, Milky Way, is one of the best-reviewed Krauss books. The Horn Book called it a “little book of unusual beauty,” the New York Times Book Review’s Lois Palmer thought that Krauss “has shown again how clearly she understands how children feel and what is important to them,” and the New Yorker’s Katharine T. Kinkead found “a guilelessness and spontaneity” reminiscent of “the actual conversation of an imaginative child.” Sendak’s “exquisite pictures” (as the Chicago Tribune described them) won critical approval, too. The Times thought the “soft tone” of his art apt, and Kinkead believed that “the softly colored illustrations” had “exactly caught” the “tenderness and exultation” of “the girl’s love song to her pet.” The New York Herald Tribune went even further, saying that Sendak’s “pictures match and surpass the tenderness of the text, giving it all a dreamlike fairy tale quality.”4
Both Nordstrom and Susan Carr liked the dummy for Harold’s Fairy Tale but suggested revisions. Nordstrom asked Johnson to change “(page 12) that business of making himself smaller and (page 16) making himself bigger,” when he draws the mouse hole into the
castle and later draws stairs to measure his height. Telling rather than showing, Johnson had written, “Harold made himself smaller” next to the illustration of Harold drawing the hole and a mouse larger than himself, and “Harold made himself bigger” next to the illustration of him drawing the steps. Nordstrom and Carr thought this “too intricate,” with Nordstrom adding, “I started to say ‘too intricate for children,’ but I have to admit that it missed me entirely and I am in my late ’teens, as you very well know.” Johnson took Nordstrom’s advice, allowing images rather than words to convey most of the meaning in the book. According to Johnson, “Without telling readers over seven Harold ‘made himself small’ (a flat statement of a magical act) we let them get the ‘joke’ by themselves. Readers under seven, who can’t be expected to understand relativity, will know perfectly well that Harold made himself small (and by magic) without being told. Readers who are exactly seven let’s not sell any books to.” On Christmas Eve, he sent out the revised dummy along with a promise to create the finished drawings by early January.5
As 1955 drew to a close, both Johnson and Krauss had become successful children’s authors. However, as a newspaper profile noted, they never competed with one another. Instead, they worked—usually separately but sometimes together—on books “that enchant adults as well as children.” Krauss continued to work during the daytime, but Johnson was now more flexible, drawing in the day and “writing at night, away from the interruption of meter man and telephone.” When he needed a break, he liked to step out and watch the boats go by or go sailing. Krauss enjoyed swimming at the Norwalk Y. And both maintained professional interests beyond the world of juvenile publishing. Johnson was optimistic that his adjustable mattress would find a market, and Krauss still harbored ambitions of writing for an adult audience.6
Some prominent adults were reading her children’s books. In the fall of the following year, Henry Miller, author of The Tropic of Cancer (at the time banned in the United States), wrote to Harper that he thought A Hole Is to Dig “a wonderful little book” and asked for a copy for his son, Tony, plus another half dozen to give away as gifts. Nordstrom passed along Miller’s comments to Krauss. The notion of a Henry Miller blurb for A Hole Is to Dig must have amused both women.7
Johnson moved on to the jacket design for Harold’s Fairy Tale, feeling both modest about the first Harold book’s success and keen to repeat it. Given that reviewers of children’s books “are so extravagantly kind to all the books they review,” the Horn Book’s praise indicated “no more than that the reviewer accepted the book as run of the mill.” He wondered, “If quotes sell at all, wouldn’t an adjective or two from The New York Times, The New Yorker, or even The Chicago Tribune mean more to a purchaser?” Moreover, although he had “discouraged the use of the word ‘Barnaby’ in the past,” “recently in two public ventures it has been made plain to me that ‘Barnaby’ is much better known than my own name.” Perhaps the cover of the new book should mention his most famous creation. Carr agreed about referring to Barnaby but assured Johnson that the Horn Book would have “a far better chance” of influencing libraries than would any of the other publications.8
Crockett Johnson, illustration from Time for Spring (New York: Harper, 1957). Reprinted with the permission of the Estate of Ruth Krauss, Stewart I. Edelstein, Executor. All Rights Reserved.
Harold’s first adventures had done so well that by April 1956, two animated cartoon companies were proposing Harold series for short-subject release in movie theaters. Constable sought rights for the United Kingdom edition of Harold and the Purple Crayon. In Denmark, Skrifola wanted to publish it. And Johnson was already contemplating a third Harold book for release in the fall of 1957.9
Inspiration for another book came from Johnson’s dog, Gonsul, the fourteen-year-old son of the dog who had inspired Barnaby’s talking terrier, Gorgon. As Dave liked to point out, Gonsul “neither talks nor sings. But his pantomime is excellent.” In the spring of 1956, Dave sent Ursula a dummy for Terrible Terrifying Toby, in which Toby the puppy encounters “terrible and terrifying” things in his backyard—a squirrel, a frog, and a sparrow. He discovers that if he growls, they leave, making him feel more “terrible and terrifying.” But when he enters the house and encounters a mirror, he frightens himself.
That same spring, Johnson also sent Nordstrom a dummy for a very different book, Time for Spring, in which he balanced melancholy with humor. In clean, elegant prose and gray watercolors, the book tells the story of Irene, who is very ready for winter to end, and of her O’Malley-esque snowman, who is not. Irene reluctantly makes “a very little snowman” because she has “very little interest left in things that had to do with winter.” He comes to life, and, though he proves a rather obnoxious playmate, Irene remains concerned that spring threatens his existence. When she tries to tell him about his impending demise, he brushes off her concern: “Spring won’t come, while I’m here.” The two of them go back and forth, debating the incompatibility of his presence and that of spring. When the snow melts and she sees the snowman’s hat lying on the grass, Irene says, “He went away, but he left his hat,” adding, “I’ll save it for him for next year.” Nordstrom found the tale “rather sad, as well as funny, I think. And I like it.” Harper reader Bunny Aleshire also approved: “The recognition that you must lose something to gain something is not something to be expected in a children’s book.”10
This sense of loss, atypical for a Crockett Johnson story, may have many emotional roots. His niece, Bonnie Frank, who had been born in 1947 with a form of mental retardation, died in 1955. As in Irene’s response to the snowman, Bonnie’s siblings Harold (born 1953) and Tony (born 1948) may not have fully understood the meaning of their sister’s death. Dave’s father had died when he was a teenager, and his mother died a little over two years before he sent in this manuscript. His good friend Gene Wallace also had died eighteen months earlier, leaving a behind an eight-year-old daughter, who, like Irene, had dark hair. Nina is the first of more than two dozen children thanked at the beginning of Ruth’s I’ll Be You and You Be Me (1954).
The last of the “children” thanked is “Ursie,” aka Ursula Nordstrom, who accepted both Time for Spring and Terrible, Terrifying Toby, paying Johnson a thousand-dollar advance for each book. With William R. Scott allowing Who’s Upside Down? to go out of print, Johnson hoped that Harper would reissue the book, which he called “a supplementary text book in elementary cosmology,” but Nordstrom declined.11
When he visited the Harper offices, Johnson’s reserved, quiet demeanor sometimes puzzled people. His characters were adventurous and outgoing, but he seemed shy. Occasionally, however, close friends would glimpse of another side of him. On one occasion, he commented to Maurice Sendak that one of the young women working at Harper had “a fantastic ass.” Though they were well out of earshot, Sendak was shocked: “I didn’t even know he knew the word ‘ass.’ It was a glimpse into ‘Wow, this is a hot patootie, this guy.’” Laughing at the memory, Sendak added, “And that was the only mad expression I ever heard coming out of Dave Johnson. And he was right: she had a great ass.” Similarly, although Ruth and Dave rarely publicly displayed their affection for each other, they were very loving in private and around their closest friends. Nina Rowand Wallace remembered seeing Ruth “come up from behind and hug” Dave, “cuddl[ing] that wonderful bald head of his very affectionately.” The two slept in separate beds and bedrooms not because they lacked passion for each other but because Dave was nocturnal and Ruth was not. Both were awake in the afternoons and evenings.12
Acutely aware that different people need different beds, Johnson pursued his plan of marketing the four-way-adjustable mattress. In late May or early June 1956, he met with Conrad Hilton to see if his chain of hotels might be interested in buying the four-way adjustable mattress. Johnson also contacted mattress manufacturers, hoping to entice them to produce his invention. In June, Johnson wrote to Nordstrom that he wanted to do a “definitive” Barnaby bo
ok “soon, but this week and next I have to spend tome time founding a vast industrial empire with my lawyer and a rubber tycoon and a mattress mogul. I will be around to bother you the week after that.” By July, the Sealy mattress company was considering producing Johnson’s invention. Johnson worked on other projects as well, illustrating William H. Whyte Jr.’s “Budgetism: Opiate of the Middle Class” for the May 1956 issue of Fortune, Bernadine Cook’s The Little Fish That Got Away (1956), and Franklyn M. Branley and Eleanor K. Vaughn’s Mickey’s Magnet (1956).13
On weekends, Sendak continued to visit Johnson and Krauss, working on her books—in 1956, The Birthday Party—and relishing his time with them. Typically, Krauss was energetic, unpredictable, and tiring, while Johnson was calm, steady, and laconic. With Johnson, Sendak would sit and talk quietly. In his early fifties, Johnson had the “big burly body” of an ex-football player, his chest and arms starting to go soft. He was a large man with a gentle demeanor. Though much smaller, Krauss was the “jumping jack,” the “full-color stage performance,” “this explosion of energy and laughter and rage.” With her lustrous hair piled on her head, a few long strands falling down the sides of her face, Krauss would throw back her head and laugh when she was in a good mood. When she was in a bad mood, “she was a banshee!” Sendak “never understood” Krauss and Johnson’s marriage: “He was as quiet as she was noisy. He was as calm as she was like a hurricane. And yet it seemed to work.”14
Ruth Krauss. Image courtesy of the Estate of Ruth Krauss. Reprinted with the permission of the Estate of Ruth Krauss, Stewart I. Edelstein, Executor. All Rights Reserved.
It worked well for Sendak, too: The Johnson-Krauss house continued provide him with a “place of total safety” where he could work and be with people who understood him. To Sendak, “Dave was the father I always wanted. And Ruth was a bit too much like the mother I already had.” Yet where Maurice’s mother seemed consumed by her darker moods, Krauss “somehow … was stronger and fiercer and fought that depression.”15
