Happy Easter from the crayons

Toddler-PreS--In this holiday-themed offering from seasoned duo Daywalt and Jeffers, the crayons are back for some Easter egg decorating antics. Daywalt's accessible short simple sentences in typed font contrast with handwritten penciled dialogue among the crayons and provide the juxtaposing humor. The repetitive text appears to follow a natural pattern--until a line is repeated twice, both by yellow and orange, and is then abandoned, leaving the joke mid-sentence without a clear path for readers. Jeffers uses gouache technique, ink, colored pencil, and crayons (of course) to create delightfully busy and colorful endpapers that contrast with stark white backgrounds throughout. White slightly textured shapes are initially almost indistinguishable from the surroundings, until the designated crayon decorates the shape with patterns and designs. The resulting effect is muted. The penultimate reveal does not entirely coalesce into a visually coherent final product, and the last spread leaves readers as confused as the bunny-eared purple crayon. The sight gag is either too subtle or not subtle enough; the overall impact of the artwork does not match the exuberance of the high-energy egg hiding-and-seeking activity of the Easter holiday. While the book is not festive enough for the holiday, Esteban (the green crayon that seems to prefer going by a different name) and the stubby blue crayon are highly entertaining, laugh-out-loud standouts that will draw audiences to it. VERDICT An additional purchase for larger library collections where the series is popular.--Eva Thaler-Sroussi

The Crayons return to celebrate Easter. Six crayons (Red, Orange, Yellow, Esteban, who is green and wears a yellow cape, White, and Blue) each take a shape and scribble designs on it. Purple, perplexed and almost angry, keeps asking why no one is creating an egg, but the six friends have a great idea. They take the circle decorated with red shapes, the square adorned with orange squiggles "the color of the sun," the triangle with yellow designs, also "the color of the sun" (a bit repetitious), a rectangle with green wavy lines, a white star, about which Purple remarks: "DID you even color it?" and a rhombus covered with blue markings and slap the shapes onto a big, light-brown egg. Then the conversation turns to hiding the large object in plain sight. The joke doesn't really work, the shapes are not clear enough for a concept book, and though colors are delineated, it's not a very original color book. There's a bit of clever repartee. When Purple observe that Esteban's green rectangle isn't an egg, Esteban responds, "No, but MY GOSH LOOK how magnificent it is!" Still, that won't save this lackluster book, which barely scratches the surface of Easter, whether secular or religious. The multimedia illustrations, done in the same style as the other series entries, are always fun, but perhaps it's time to retire these anthropomorphic coloring implements. (This book was reviewed digitally.) Let these crayons go back into their box. (Picture book. 3-5) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.