The Pencil

The Pencil by Allan Ahlberg begins with a lonely pencil that one day makes a move.  The pencil then gets creating with a boy who then needs a dog, who needs a cat.  The reader then watches as these two animals chase themselves around drawn scenes, all in pencil.  I think too often color is emphsized and I love this text as a mentor for pencil drawings.  However, the animals ask for more things and they can't eat a black and white apple, so the pencil draws a paintbrush.   Then the text takes you on a journey with the pencil drawing and the paintbrush adding color.  The characters that have been drawn become a bit grumpy causing the need for an eraser.  The eraser is helpful in fixing things until he gets too excited and erases too much.  Children do this, they erase too much and this eraser did until there was just a pencil.  The pencil draws things to stop the eraser; a wall, a cage, a river to name a few with no success.  The pencil does find a solution and one I'm sure your children will enjoy.