A pencil begins to draw on an empty canvas. “The pencil drew a boy. 'What’s my name?’ said the boy. 'Er…Banjo,’ said the pencil. 'Good,’ said Banjo. 'Draw me a dog.’ ” Everything the pencil draws demands to be named, and with an identity come wants and needs. Soon the blank world is illustrated with the boy, his dog, a cat, and an entire community. Then a paintbrush is commissioned and presto! Color fills the black-and-white voids. While there is potential for the story line to follow the path of a boy and a purple crayon, Allan Ahlberg’s amusing adventure turns a corner when an eraser is introduced to the scene. The excitable eraser begins to rub things out and soon rubs everyone the wrong way. Not until the pencil is backed into a corner by the encroaching eraser is a brilliant solution conceived. Bruce Ingman’s simple and well-imagined acrylic illustrations bring Ahlberg’s clever story to life—complete with lifelike smudges and bits of used-up eraser. (Ages 5–9)

A lonely pencil draws a boy, a dog, a cat, a whole neighborhood, and then a paintbrush to make everything colorful. When the pencil draws an eraser, however, it begins to rub everyone and everything out. The pencil must come up with a plan to stop the eraser before it rubs him out, too. This is a clever, engaging story with cartoonlike illustrations, featuring the animated pencil, paintbrush, and eraser, that extend the sly humor of the text. The ending, which at first seems like it will be predictable, is inven tive and surprising . ca

Originally published by Walker Books Great Britain, in 2008.