Pencilvania
by Stephanie Watson (Author) Sofia Moore (Illustrator)
In this illustrated, modern take on The Phantom Tollbooth meets Harold and the Purple Crayon, author Stephanie Watson beautifully explores grief and creativity through an unforgettable fantasy world.
Ever since she first learned to hold a crayon, Zora Webb has been unstoppable. Zora draws hamsters wearing pajamas and balloons and Lake Superior and pancakes and hundreds of horses. Her drawings fill sketchbooks and cover the walls of the happy home she shares with Frankie and their mother.But when Zora's mom is diagnosed with leukemia, everything changes.
After months of illness, she dies, and with her goes Zora's love of creation. Desperate to escape the pain, Zora scribbles out her artwork. Her dark, furious scribbles lift off the page and yank Zora and Frankie into Pencilvania, a magical world that's home to everything Zora has ever drawn. And one drawing--a scribbled-out horse named Viscardi--is determined to finish the destruction Zora started.
Viscardi kidnaps Frankie, promising to scribble her and all of Pencilvania out at sunrise. Zora sets out to rescue her sister, venturing deep into Pencilvania--a place crawling with memories, dangers, and new friends. If she is to save Frankie, Zora will have to face the darkness that both surrounds her and is inside of her.
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Gr 4-6--Twelve-year-old Zora was an artist. When her mom died of leukemia, Zora and her younger sister Frankie move from Duluth, MN, to Pittsburgh to live with Grandma Wren, their mom's mother whom they barely know. In her grief over losing her mother, Zora also loses her interest and ability to draw, what she and her sister call her "Voom." One day when Zora is overwhelmed by her feelings, she and Frankie are pulled into a land of Zora's drawings, Pencilvania. Each picture is alive, three-dimensional, and attached to a memory. The villain of the land, a horse named Viscardi, has captured many of the creatures with binding black scribbles. Fueled by Zora's sorrow, he aims to destroy the world of drawings. In this fantasy land of her own creations, Zora must confront her grief over the loss of her mother and the changes her death brought to her own life. She uses her Voom to save her sister and her world of drawings. "Zora's" pencil artwork appears as illustrations throughout book. VERDICT This action-packed fantasy story confronts real-world feelings of grief, healing, power, and bravery.--Lindsay Persohn, Univ. of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee
Copyright 2021 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.Review quotes
JUV037000 - Juvenile Fiction | Fantasy & Magic
JUV013070 - Juvenile Fiction | Family | Siblings
Grief
Drawing
Creative ability
