All the Answers

December 22, 2014
Ava Anderson, a 12-year-old chronic worrier, comes across a pencil that appears to be able to talk, telling her the answers to her questions about everything from mathematical formulas for a quiz to concerns over family members' health problems. Messner (Manhunt) has created a relatable, sympathetic character in anxious Ava, and her story is at its best when Ava's life remains centered around the norms of her school, friends, and multigenerational family, as well as the lighter dilemmas and possibilities the magic pencil raises, such as whether it's cheating to use it on homework, or which boy likes her best friend. However, despite the potential of the premise, it flounders a bit when too many worries are piled onto Ava's plate, overloading the story with serious concerns over dementia, breast cancer, gambling addictions, and the death of a loved one. Ava eventually comes to learn that "life isn't about knowing all the answers," but she must bear some heavy burdens in order to come to that knowledge. Ages 8â12. Agent: Jennifer Laughran, Andrea Brown Literary Agency.

November 15, 2014
When 12-year-old Ava Anderson finds a magic pencil in the kitchen junk drawer, geometry becomes a lot easier-and her life becomes much more complicated.Ava lives with her family in upstate New York, along with two goats purchased by her father in hopes that fresh goats' milk will help Anderson's General Store survive the new Shop-Mart superstore. Ava is afraid of the goats. She's also afraid of math tests, band audition, field trips and participating in the lunchtime library book club at school. So when her pencil says, "Two Pi R," when she desperately writes, "What is the formula to find the circumference of a circle?" on her math test, she sees her road to certainty. But it won't answer just any question-like whether her parents may get divorced-as people have free will, and some answers are just plain terrifying, like whether her grandmother is going to die. Messner plunges Ava into recognizable preteen situations both at school and at home. She stuffs her book with issues, though, and both the nature of and the explanation for the pencil's magic are fatally contrived. Nevertheless, readers will cheer as Ava heroically tackles a terrifying ropes course alone so that her mother will get a medical test only Ava knows she needs. This sympathetic protagonist offers children a mostly successful look at clinical anxiety. (Fantasy. 8-12)

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March 1, 2015

Gr 4-6-Middle schooler Ava always seems to be nervous about something: her math quiz, an upcoming field trip to an adventure park, the possibility of her parents divorcing. When she uses an old blue pencil found in a junk drawer to write a question in the margin of her math quiz, a voice that only she can hear tells her the correct answer. It turns out that the pencil can answer factual questions of all kinds, from what people think and feel queries about schoolwork. Ava and her friend Sophie use the magical power of the pencil to try to help the elderly people in Ava's grandpa's old age home and in the process make discoveries about her grandpa's thoughts and wishes. So far so good, but when Ava discovers through the pencil that her mother has breast cancer and that her mother is about to postpone her mammogram so that she can accompany Ava on her adventure park trip, Ava finds herself having to call on all her inner resources to ensure that her mother goes for her test. In the process, she surprises herself at what she is able to do. When Ava realizes that the magic pencil is inhabited by a piece of her long-dead grandmother's spirit, she helps to make her grandfather's last moments happier. Ava is a sympathetic and well-rounded character, and the relationship, conflicts included, between her and the more outgoing Sophie rings true. The writing is smooth and the dialogue believable. VERDICT Firmly planted in realistic fiction with a single fantastical element, this story will appeal to Wendy Mass fans as well as those who love Messner's previous novels.-Sue Giffard, Ethical Culture Fieldston School, New York

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