Pencilvania

by Stephanie Watson, Sofia Moore (Illustrator)

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781728247885
Publisher:	Sourcebooks
Publication date:	10/05/2021
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	1,074,261
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 7.60(h) x 1.00(d)
Lexile:	660L (what's this?)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Stephanie Watson is the author of several books for young readers, including Best Friends in the Universe, Behold! A Baby, and Elvis & Olive. In addition to writing, she loves teaching writing workshops and giving author talks at schools and libraries, both in person and online. She lives with her daughter in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Learn more at www.stephanie-watson.com.

Sofia Moore is a Ukrainian-American artist and illustrator based in Las Vegas, Nevada. She loves painting traditionally and layers textures both on paper and digitally, her ideas come from a lot of sketchbook drawings and making up stories every day.

Editorial Reviews

"A vibrant celebration of art’s power to console and heal." — Kirkus Reviews

"Readers fond of imaginary excursions to Oz, Dictionopolis, or like therapeutic locales will be “drawn” to this one." — Booklist

"...for elementary school libraries, for fans of fantastical adventures, and for those looking for a good cry." — School Library Connection

From the Publisher

10/02/2021

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

School Library Journal

2021-08-16
Zora, 12, shares her mother’s artistic gifts, but when grief and guilt lead her to destroy years of drawings, the results are astonishing.

Voom is Zora and her mom’s word for the artistic impulse that bubbles up inside. After disclosing her leukemia diagnosis to Zora and her sister, Frankie, Mom promised the girls she’d beat it. Ten months later, their far sicker mom is hospitalized in Pittsburgh, where the girls share their bus driver grandmother’s basement apartment. Mom continues to be optimistic and avoid acknowledging the possibility of death. Frustrated and needing to hear a realistic prognosis, Zora uses her art to show her mother the truth of how ill she looks. Later that night her mom dies—and Zora’s Voom goes away. When Grandma Wren disappoints Frankie on her seventh birthday, Zora’s guilt-fueled anger erupts. Over Frankie’s protests, Zora scribbles out her drawings until the scribbles fight back, pulling the girls into Pencilvania, a world where each of Zora’s creations lives. Most of her now-animated drawings welcome her—except for one scribbled-out horse who kidnaps Frankie. Guided by a seven-legged horse, the Zoracle (a composite of her early self-portraits), and other charming creations, Zora sets out to rescue Frankie and rediscover the wellspring of creativity that forms her mother’s legacy. Presumed White, the humans are well rounded and believable. Pencilvania’s inhabitants, conceived with humorous, metafictional whimsy, are enlivened with copious, inventive illustrations.

A vibrant celebration of art’s power to console and heal. (Fiction. 8-12)

Kirkus Reviews