The picture book, written and illustrated by Crockett Johnson, follows Harold, a child who can create whatever he can imagine, so long as he draws it with his magic purple crayon.

“Harold and the Purple Crayon,” the famed 1955 children’s picture book, is getting the three-dimensional treatment nearly 70 years after its release.

Harold is capable of surprising himself, making mistakes and correcting them on the fly. He tumbles off the end of a line and falls through space, rescuing himself with a hot-air balloon.

REVIEW “ Harold and the Purple Crayon,” the famed 1955 children’s picture book, is getting the three-dimensional treatment nearly 70 years after its release.

In the original children’s book, Harold, a young boy, goes for a walk at night with his oversize purple crayon, according to HarperCollins, the New York-based publisher of the book.

The previously announced adaptation of TEG+’s Harold and the Purple Crayon has found its book writers in Dan Rothenberg (co-artistic director of Pig Iron Theatre Company) and Robert Quillen Camp ...

Zachary Levi stars as Harold, the subject of the kids book originally published in 1955 about a 4-year-old boy who uses his imagination to make what he draws with his purple crayon come to life.

There was also a 13-episode television series for HBO in 2001 narrated by Sharon Stone while, in 2022, a Broadway musical adaptation of Harold and the Purple Crayon was announced as well.

“Harold” deserves better and to be fair, he’s had better: The 1959 animated adaptation of Crockett Johnson’s original book is still just as enchanting as it’s always been.

HAROLD | By Steven Wright | 256 pp. | Simon & Schuster | $26 A version of this article appears in print on Aug. 6, 2023, Page 19 of the Sunday Book Review with the headline: A Lot on His Mind.