by Moe Zilla

Created on: May 13, 2010

"Once there was a pencil, a lonely little pencil, and nothing else..."

"Then one day that little pencil made a move, shivered slightly, quivered somewhat...and began to draw."

It's an audacious premise. (I wondered if this book was going to be banned by creationists who insisted the world was created by god - and not a lonely little pencil!) And the first thing it draws is its book's title page - written in tall, ragged cursive letters. But this magical set-up gives the book a tremendous number of possibilities going in to page two...

The first thing it draws is a little boy, who demands that the pencil draw him a dog. Then the boy demands a cat - which gets chased by the dog. So the pencil draws a house for their chase, and then a park. (The pencil actually disappears by page three, but the book shows the simple black-and-white sketches that show where he's been!) But then the dog, the cat, and the boy insist that the pencil draw them something to eat...

Unfortunately, the food is inedible, because it's black and white.

So the pencil draws himself a friendly paintbrush - which he names Kitty. Soon they've colored in the house and the park - plus the animals and the boy. The pencil and the paintbrush are both cheerful and excited.  What's next? "Anything!" yells the paintbrush. "You draw and I'll color it."

It's sort of a "deconstruction" of a children's book, because characters suddenly appear in the illustrations without being connected to a specific story. The little boy suddenly gets parents - and grandparents, and cousins. (And the dog gets another dog to play with...plus a rubber ball.) But the most fascinating thing is that parts of the illustrations are thick black-pencil sketches. And yet their black and white outlines are mixed in on the same page with fully-colored drawings of people and things!

It sounds like a complicated book, but that's part of the fun. And it's tied together by the simple helpfulness of the lonely pencil. Author Allan Ahlberg keeps the tone playful and breezy, and the illustrations - by Bruce Ingman - bring it all to life. The key to this book is not to get too hung up on its characters.

Because eventually, the little pencil is going to draw himself an eraser!

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