[gruseom]

That purple crayon sounds ultra cool. I don't remember having read that book, but the OP reminded me of one called Mr Pine's Purple House that made a big impact on me when I was learning to read. Maybe there's a secret purple fraternity of children's books.

Mr Pine lives on a street where all the houses are white with white picket fences, and he can never find his own damn house. (The book didn't say "damn".) One day he decides to bust loose and paint it purple. I remembered this as a crypto-anarchistic 60s radical "do your own thing" kind of thing. It stuck in my mind as a subversive influence.

Years later I discovered that a fan group devoted to this book had formed on the internet and persuaded the now 80-year old author to republish it. I mentioned this randomly one day and months later my son cleverly gave it to me as a birthday present. The whole thing turned out to be far tamer than I remembered! Either it was extremely gentle crypto-anarchism or I totally read that into it. I'm not sure which explanation is better.