Enjoy this unique book full of excitement. was born and grew up in Lerwick, the capital of the Shetland Islands. Johnson finished out his career as a fine artist, painting over 100 large, vivid canvases of geometric forms. An EarlyON Video Our book for this week is 'Harold and the Purple Crayon' by Crockett Johnson. Crockett Johnson was born David Johnson Leisk (rhymes with 'disc').

He married author Ruth Krauss in the early ’40s and lived on the shore of Long Island Sound, where Maurice Sendak would “apprentice” in his early twenties. The Magic Beach was published by Front Street in 2005. Harold, the protagonist of his best known series, began his many journeys in Harold and the Purple Crayon in 1955.Ī previously unpublished manuscript was recently found. Johnson’s first book, Who’s Upside Down?, was published in 1952. “I draw people without hair because it’s so much easier! Besides, to me, people with hair look funny.”īefore he became a well-known writer and illustrator of children’s books, he created some of the most beloved comic strip characters of the 20th century. Like Barnaby and Harold, his most famous characters, Johnson was bald. He studied art at Cooper Union and New York University. Crockett was a childhood nickname and so he chose it for a pen name. Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss by Nel Philip from. Crockett Johnson was born David Johnson Leisk on October 20, 1906, in New York City.

Crockett johnson