Penny and the Plain Piece of Paper

by Miri Leshem-Pelly, Miri Leshem-Pelly (Illustrator)

Overview

One little doodle girl takes control of her own creative destiny in this funny and imaginative book perfect for fans of Harold and the Purple Crayon!

Penny lives on a plain piece of paper, with just one problem—she's bored. There's nothing to do, no one to talk to, not a single way to keep herself entertained! Not one to wallow, Penny makes a decision: it's high time she ventured out into the world and explored other types of paper.

But when she's not serious enough for the newspaper, not angular enough for the graph paper, and not repetitive enough for the wrapping paper, Penny doesn't know where she belongs. With some help from the friends she's met along her journey, though, she comes up with the perfect paper plan for herself.

In this fun and funny book about fitting in and finding home, imagination wins the day!

Praise for Penny and the Plain Piece of Paper:

* "Penny's journey through varying visual styles is bright, fascinating, and funny . . . Irresistibly touchable." —Kirkus Reviews, *STARRED REVIEW*

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781984812728
Publisher:	Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date:	08/25/2020
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	8.10(w) x 9.80(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Miri Leshem-Pelly (mirileshembooks.com) has always been fascinated by stories, both reading them and telling them. The author and illustrator of fourteen books, most published in Hebrew, she lives in Hadera, Israel, with her husband and two children. Follow her on Twitter @MiriLeshem.

Editorial Reviews

Praise for Penny and the Plain Piece of Paper:

* "Penny’s journey through varying visual styles is bright, fascinating, and funny . . . Irresistibly touchable." —Kirkus Reviews, *STARRED REVIEW*

From the Publisher

★ 2020-05-03
A character, bored of the piece of paper she exists on, ventures forth.

From pigtails (three, going straight upward) through football-shaped head and skinny limbs to high heels, Penny is entirely made up of rainbow-colored scribbly lines. No wonder she finds it so monotonous to loll about on an undecorated white sheet of paper. Her eyelids droop with ennui. However, Penny’s “plain piece of paper” is anything but. Slightly smaller than—and set askew from—the page of Leshem-Pelly’s actual book, Penny’s piece of paper has mild crinkles and the faint shading that those crinkles bring, creating an optical illusion that begs to be touched. It seems impossible for Leshem-Pelly’s page to feel perfectly smooth, but of course it does. Penny visits other types of paper: an amusingly dull and pompous newspaper, a map with trompe-l’oeil folds, a coloring book. All are hyper-realistic in their portrayal of the material, and each forces an oppressive aesthetic rule on Penny. The arc’s explicit message (“Let’s make our own rules!”) is forgettable, but Penny’s journey through varying visual styles is bright, fascinating, and funny, especially when she busts out of a geometric shape that graph paper bullies her into or when a pair of children (one black, one white) cheerfully offers gifts—and offers gifts, and offers gifts. Their textured and confettied realm is, of course, wrapping paper with a repeating design.

Irresistibly touchable. (Picture book. 4-8)

Kirkus Reviews