Drew Daywalt facts for kids

Drew Daywalt at Politics and Prose, Washington, D.C

Drew Daywalt (born January 5, 1970) is an American author and filmmaker. He is famous for writing the best-selling children's picture book The Day the Crayons Quit. He also wrote its sequel, The Day the Crayons Came Home. Both books were illustrated by Oliver Jeffers. Daywalt has also written scripts for American TV shows and Hollywood movies. He is also known for making many short horror films for the internet.

Early Life and Storytelling

Drew Daywalt was born in Hudson, Ohio, on January 5, 1970. He was the youngest of six children. He grew up in a house that many people thought was haunted. He said it looked like "The Munsters" house.

His older brothers helped him get interested in scary stories. He remembers staying up late with them to watch horror movies. He also read their Heavy Metal, Creepy, and Tales from the Crypt comic books. At the same time, his mother would read to him from famous children's authors. These included Dr. Seuss, Roald Dahl, and Maurice Sendak. Daywalt said that all these stories filled his mind with "other worlds." He feels that his work, whether scary stories or children's books, comes from this time in his life.

Daywalt realized that books and movies were made by people when he was seven. This was in 1977. He had just seen the first Star Wars movie. When the credits showed who wrote the screenplay, he knew he wanted to tell stories too.

He later studied creative writing at Emerson College in Boston. He focused on screenwriting and children's literature. His goal was to work with companies like Disney and Warner Brothers. He wanted to write children's animation for TV and movies.

Drew Daywalt's Career

Filmmaking and Short Films

Drew Daywalt first became known for writing and directing short films. He co-founded a YouTube channel called Fewdio in 2007. He said they started it because they wanted to make horror films they loved. They had been scriptwriters for many years. Daywalt learned about cameras and they made their first short film, "Cursed."

He made many short films with Fewdio. His 2009 horror short "Bedfellows" won an award for Best Short Film. One writer described his work with Fewdio as "the first really great horror films for the Internet era." The group stopped working together in 2010. Daywalt then started his own YouTube channel, Daywalt Fear Factory.

In 2012, Daywalt directed his first full-length movie. It was a made-for-television fantasy horror film called Red Clover. It was also released as Leprechaun's Revenge for the SyFy Channel.

Writing Children's Books

The Day the Crayons Quit

Drew Daywalt's first children's picture book was The Day the Crayons Quit. Oliver Jeffers drew the pictures. It was published on June 27, 2013. The book was a huge success. Critics liked it, and it sold over 1.5 million copies around the world.

The idea for the book came from a box of crayons on Daywalt's desk. He liked writing conversations. He thought, "I have a box of crayons on my desk. It's important enough for me to have them." He decided to give the crayons voices. He wrote the book as letters from the crayons. In these letters, the crayons complain to a boy named Duncan about how he uses them. They were like letters where they were quitting.

Since 2013, The Day the Crayons Quit has been very popular. By January 2019, it had been on The New York Times Best Seller list for children's picture books for 258 weeks. It was number one for over a year.

Many critics gave the book good reviews. Publishers Weekly said Daywalt wrote "funny letters that express annoyance and aim to persuade." They also said the crayon characters were "memorable."

In 2014, Danielle Herzog from The Washington Post shared how much her children loved the book. She said her kids "howled with laughter" when she read the letters. They especially liked the argument between the orange and yellow crayons about the sun. They also laughed when the white crayon was only used for cats and snow. After reading, her children rushed to their own crayons. They drew many pictures that ended up on their refrigerator.

The Day The Crayons Quit has won many awards. In 2013, it won the Goodreads Choice Award for Best Picture Book. Amazon named it their Best Children's Book. Time magazine put it on its list of the 100 Best Children's Books of All Time.

Later, the book won the Texas Bluebonnet Award in 2015. It received almost 30,000 votes from children in Texas. Daywalt and Jeffers received the award in person. The book also won the 2015 Nevada Young Readers Award. It won the 2016 California Young Reader Medal and the 2016 Young Hoosier Book Award.

In July 2014, Universal Studios bought the rights to make The Day the Crayons Quit into a film.

Other Children's Books

In October 2014, Daywalt announced a sequel to the book. It was called The Day the Crayons Came Home. Philomel Books published it on August 18, 2015. Oliver Jeffers again did the illustrations. This book also received good reviews and sold very well. It stayed on The New York Times Best Seller list for over 40 weeks.

In 2017, Daywalt wrote another picture book, The Legend of Rock Paper Scissors. Adam Rex illustrated this book. It won the Young Hoosier Book Award for 2019–2020.

Awards and Recognition