The Little Red Pen

Initially echoing the plot of "The Little Red Hen," sisters and longtime collaborators Stevens and Crummel introduce a bespectacled, schoolmarmish red pen with a stack of papers to grade. Her desk-drawer friends, however, refuse to help, even when the Little Red Pen insists, "If these papers aren't graded, the students won't learn.... The sky might fall. It might be the end of the world!" When the pen, exhausted from grading, falls into the wastebasket--aka "The Pit of No Return"--her friends must rally to rescue her. Stevens's full-bleed illustrations caricature the office supplies in a style reminiscent of Sir John Tenniel, from a bucktoothed Stapler and fuzzy-haired Highlighter to a tiny pushpin, Senorita Chincheta, who makes up for her small size with her emphatic bilingual declarations. But while the story is often verbally clever, with many humorous individual scenes (Stapler's idea of correcting papers is stapling all over the offending paragraph), the convoluted plot and numerous speaking characters (six desk-drawer friends, plus a ruler, yardstick, paperclip box, and a lethargic hamster) make the story as a whole feel overlong and overdone. Ages 6-9. (Apr.)

Copyright 2011 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.

Gr 2-4--In a schoolroom take on this classic tale of cooperation, the teacher's tools pool their energies to solve a problem. The Little Red Pen has fallen into the trash, exhausted after working alone long into the night. The inhabitants of the desk drawer--stapler, pushpin, scissors, highlighter, eraser, pencil, paper clips--each have a lame reason for not helping the pen, but then they realize the error of their ways: if the papers don't get graded, it will be "the end of the world." The rescue isn't easy, but using a little ingenuity and a finally wide-awake classroom hamster, the world doesn't end, the papers get graded, and the friends vow their loyalty for the future. Stevens's enchanting, well-imagined, dimensional cartoon-style drawings of the office-supply characters imbue each one with a distinct personality to match their dialogic voices. That dialogue appears in character-specific fonts against fully illustrated backgrounds and gives the story a cinematic feel. Adults will need Jim Dale's range of voices for a memorable read-aloud, but the ubiquity of graphic novels and resurgence of comics for all age groups assures that young readers will have no trouble following the action. Extend a science lesson on pulleys and levers; stop and start the reading for a lesson on prediction; and pull out your six-traits writing workbooks so students can describe the characters or action. This book is recommended for any classroom and should find a home in most libraries.--Lisa Egly Lehmuller, St. Patrick's Catholic School, Charlotte, NC

Copyright 2011 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.