Sue Boyle, age 10, of Sioux City, Iowa, for her question:

HOW ARE CRAYONS MADE?

If you had a picture of Andy to color, you might color his suit and pixie hat green and his boots brown. Then again you might like red or blue or even purple--it makes no difference. With the wide variety of colored crayons available today you could color the same picture hundreds of times and never use the same combination twice. In the early part of this century, however, your choice would have been easy--there was only one waxy crayon and its color was black. And about the only persons to use them were storekeepers who marked prices with them.

Modern crayons are made from colored pigment and wax. Each batch starts out as a kettle full of hot wax and a coloring pigment. The coloring pigment is measured very carefully to make sure that each color will always be the same. After mixing and stirring until everything is thoroughly blended, the liquid wax is poured onto mold tables that have hundreds of crayon-sized holes. After they are dry they are pushed out of the holes, inspected and sent to machines that wrap and box them. If you have a super-sized crayon box you might have as many as 72 different colors to choose from.