This week, Crayola honored children's book author Eric Carle by creating a new color: The Very Hungry Caterpillar Green. A nice gesture, though part of the beauty of Carle's work is that his caterpillar and other featured elements are collage-like, defying simple description.

Crayola has occasionally created other promotional colors. For example, a custom box of 64 was once given to Oprah with a new color: "the color purple.” (I would have given it to Crockett Johnson, author of Harold and the Purple Crayon, one of my favorite books for kids.)

Meanwhile, I'm still waiting for raw umber to make a comeback. It was scrapped by Crayola in 1990, along with maize, lemon yellow, violet blue, orange red, orange yellow, green blue, and blue gray (which should be the official color of the state of Maryland, given its North/South blend).