Green is For Christmas

Drew Daywalt

Oliver Jeffers

HarperCollins, 2021

32pp., hbk., RRP $A17.99

 9780008496203

When Green Crayon claims that green is the only colour for Christmas, other crayons let him know that there would be no Christmas without them either. No candy canes or Santa without Red, no snow without White, no bells or stars without Silver and no cookies or reindeer without Brown!  Can they come to some agreement or will their Christmas be ruined because of their squabbling?

The mark of a great storyteller is one who can not only take a simple concept and turn it into an entertaining story, but who then opens up all sorts of questions that the reader can muse about, perhaps even investigate.  For example, crayons’ opinions aside, why are red and green the colours that are traditionally associated with Christmas, and having discovered the answer to that, ask if this holds true for Australia.  Are red and green the predominant colours of our Christmas period or would it be better to use the blue of the sky and the gold of the beaches, or maybe even the sage green of the bush?

Daywalt and Jeffers are developing a growing body of work featuring the iconic Crayons, seemingly simple in concept and appearance but each offering much to inspire our youngest readers to think deeply and investigate just how and why their world works.  Green is For Christmas is a worthy addition.