His crayon is purple – but is Harold a Black boy?

Prior to 1998, Harold of ‘Harold and the Purple Crayon’ was depicted as racially ambiguous. Harper & Brothers, 1955 by Philip Nel, Kansas State University Is Crockett Johnson’s Harold, of “Harold and the Purple Crayon,” a child of color? If you’ve bought any of the “Harold” books published in the past 25 years, or saw the new movie starring Zachary Levi as an adult Harold, your answer is probably “No.” In 1998, HarperCollins relaunched the “Harold” books – seven picture books in which the title character, standing on a blank page, uses his purple crayon to draw the world and his adventures in it. The physical copies of the new editions are larger, and the publisher modified the covers, changing the color of Harold’s jumper from white to blue and altering Harold’s original tan complexion to light peach – even though Harold remains tan within the pages of the books. When HarperCollins reissued the book in 1998, there were a couple of updates to the new cover, pictured on the right: Harold wore a light blue jumper, and his skin became lighter. Both covers reproduced courtesy of The Ruth Krauss Foundation, Inc., CC BY-SA Their decision likely influenced the creators...