From Amazon: What if your pencil had all the answers? Would you ace every test? Would you know what your teachers were thinking? When Ava Anderson finds a scratched up pencil, she doodles like she would with any other pencil. But when she writes a question in the margin of her math quiz, she hears a clear answer in a voice no one else seems to hear. |
Oh, there are similarities, but Ms. Messner strays from the fun part of her story, getting sidetracked into issues of worry, divorce, dementia, breast cancer, and mourning . The enchanted pencil gets left behind when Ava has to face her fears of a big, bad obstacle course in the trees (which might have been a better "hook" for this story than the magic pencil).
All in all, after hearing Messner talk about her love for research, it didn't seem like she put as much effort into this one. It seems like she strayed from her usual writing style. I suggest you pick up Capture the Flag instead.