Story Time: The Day the Crayons Quit (18/04/2015)
| Venue | ： | Causeway Bay Kiddyland Basement, 68 Yee Wo Street, Causeway Bay, H.K. |
| Speaker | ： | Mr. Michael Sharmon |
| Host | ： | Ms. Christa Tam |
Review
It had taken us quite a long time to find just the right person to tell Drew Daywalt's bestselling debut picture book, The Day the Crayons Quit. We need someone who could do 12 different voices! Luckily, we found Michael Sharmon!
A theatre actor and singer himself, Michael gave a unique voice to all the crayons in the story - red, purple, beige, grey, white, black, green, yellow, orange, blue, pink and peach. Every crayon came alive with its own distinct character! Michael dramatically showed their emotion with gestures as well, much to the delight of our young members. Such as folding his arms and frowning to express the red crayon's annoyance as it was much overworked having to colour fire engines, apples, strawberries and work on holidays such as Christmas and Valentine's Day! The children just loved it!
They were clearly amused by the crayons' complaints – purple's about Duncan drawing outside the lines; beige's about not getting to colour much, grey's about colouring elephants and rhinos which were of large size; yellow crayon's insistence that it's the colour of the sun, not orange; pink that it was not used once in the whole year because Duncan thought it's a girl's colour etc. So what would Duncan do? Well, clever Duncan wanted his crayons to be happy and the result was a glorious array of every colour on land, at sea and in the sky which resolved their complaints!
Michael's voices engaged the audience so well that everyone was so eager to tell him what their favourite colour was and to answer his questions. The parents in the audience also learnt a few tips from his reading on how best to get the children interested in the book, employing a new voice for each character and not to be afraid to act silly were just two of them!
Inspired by the story and the wonderful pictures by Oliver Jeffers, bestselling author and illustrator, it was apparent that all the boys and girls wanted to draw as well. They got together in three groups and drew on a large piece of paper together. Everyone wanted to make sure they made all the crayons happy so that they wouldn't quit! The result was so marvellous that we were certain that no crayon would quit! Everyone left happily with a set of activity sheets to work on that would not just keep them occupied but help them remember the story better.
