At Wonder Ponder, we’re celebrating the seventieth anniversary of a truly remarkable little book, Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson. We’re also marking the book’s new Spanish and Catalan editions Harold y el lápiz morado and En Harold i el llapis morat, published by us at Wonder Ponder, a literature and philosophy for children publisher based in Madrid (Spain). In fact, it’s the first time ever that Harold is going to be available in Catalan so that’s very exciting.

Ellen Duthie, a partner at Wonder Ponder, a Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss enthusiast herself, and the translator of this new edition of Harold into Spanish, is joined by Philip Nel, University Distinguished Professor of English at Kansas State University and the author of the fabulous study on Harold, How to Draw the World. Part of the Oxford University Press series Children’s Classics, Critically.

They talk about what Crockett Johnson’s great little masterpiece still has to teach us, seventy years later, about literature, imagination, and generally the joy of making things up. They mention surprise, translation, humour, colour, mathematics, AI, and what happens when adults read children’s books seriously.

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