All the Answers

by Kate Messner

Overview

"A charming, moving, funny, and ultimately very surprising story." —Wendy Mass, New York Times bestselling author of 11 Birthdays

What if your pencil were MAGICAL?

When Ava Anderson finds an old blue pencil in her family's junk drawer, it doesn't seem like anything special. But then she writes a question in the margin of her math quiz, and she hears a voice loud and clear—one that nobody else can hear—and it tells her the answer!

With the help of her best friend, Sophie, Ava sees that having a magical, all-knowing pencil can be very handy in middle school. But as Ava's reliance on the pencil grows, the truths it reveals about herself and her family lead Ava on an adventure she never expected.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781681190204
Publisher:	Bloomsbury USA
Publication date:	04/19/2016
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.80(d)
Lexile:	720L (what's this?)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Kate Messner is a former middle-school English teacher and the author of E. B. White Read Aloud Award winner The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z. and its companion, The Exact Location of Home; Sugar and Ice; Eye of the Storm; Wake Up Missing; All the Answers; The Seventh Wish; Capture the Flag; Hide and Seek; the Marty McGuire chapter book series; the Ranger in Time chapter book series; and several picture books. She lives on Lake Champlain with her husband and two kids. When she's not reading or writing, she loves hiking, kayaking, biking, and watching thunderstorms over the lake. www.katemessner.com

@KateMessner

Editorial Reviews

It's no surprise that Kate Messner's magic pen could write a charming, moving, funny, and ultimately very surprising story about a magic pencil!” —Wendy Mass, New York Times best selling author of 11 BIRTHDAYS

“Messner (Manhunt) has created a relatable, sympathetic character in anxious Ava, and her story is at its best when Ava's life remains centered around the norms of her school, friends, and multigenerational family.” —Publishers Weekly

“Ava learns lessons about coping and bravery that should resonate with middle grade readers struggling with their own anxieties. Although Ava is constantly worried, the novel's tone remains bright and cheerful. Yes, there's a magical pencil, but this remains an emotionally resonant portrait of a sweet girl whose struggles are firmly rooted in reality.” —Booklist

“Will appeal to Wendy Mass fans as well as those who love Messner's previous novels.” —School Library Journal

From the Publisher

03/01/2015
Gr 4–6—Middle schooler Ava always seems to be nervous about something: her math quiz, an upcoming field trip to an adventure park, the possibility of her parents divorcing. When she uses an old blue pencil found in a junk drawer to write a question in the margin of her math quiz, a voice that only she can hear tells her the correct answer. It turns out that the pencil can answer factual questions of all kinds, from what people think and feel queries about schoolwork. Ava and her friend Sophie use the magical power of the pencil to try to help the elderly people in Ava's grandpa's old age home and in the process make discoveries about her grandpa's thoughts and wishes. So far so good, but when Ava discovers through the pencil that her mother has breast cancer and that her mother is about to postpone her mammogram so that she can accompany Ava on her adventure park trip, Ava finds herself having to call on all her inner resources to ensure that her mother goes for her test. In the process, she surprises herself at what she is able to do. When Ava realizes that the magic pencil is inhabited by a piece of her long-dead grandmother's spirit, she helps to make her grandfather's last moments happier. Ava is a sympathetic and well-rounded character, and the relationship, conflicts included, between her and the more outgoing Sophie rings true. The writing is smooth and the dialogue believable. VERDICT Firmly planted in realistic fiction with a single fantastical element, this story will appeal to Wendy Mass fans as well as those who love Messner's previous novels.—Sue Giffard, Ethical Culture Fieldston School, New York

School Library Journal

2014-11-04
When 12-year-old Ava Anderson finds a magic pencil in the kitchen junk drawer, geometry becomes a lot easier—and her life becomes much more complicated.Ava lives with her family in upstate New York, along with two goats purchased by her father in hopes that fresh goats' milk will help Anderson's General Store survive the new Shop-Mart superstore. Ava is afraid of the goats. She's also afraid of math tests, band audition, field trips and participating in the lunchtime library book club at school. So when her pencil says, "Two Pi R," when she desperately writes, "What is the formula to find the circumference of a circle?" on her math test, she sees her road to certainty. But it won't answer just any question—like whether her parents may get divorced—as people have free will, and some answers are just plain terrifying, like whether her grandmother is going to die. Messner plunges Ava into recognizable preteen situations both at school and at home. She stuffs her book with issues, though, and both the nature of and the explanation for the pencil's magic are fatally contrived. Nevertheless, readers will cheer as Ava heroically tackles a terrifying ropes course alone so that her mother will get a medical test only Ava knows she needs. This sympathetic protagonist offers children a mostly successful look at clinical anxiety. (Fantasy. 8-12)

Kirkus Reviews