All the Answers - Hardcover

Messner, Kate

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1619633744 ISBN 13: 9781619633742

Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Childrens, 2015

Synopsis

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.
With the help of her friend Sophie, Ava figures out that the pencil will answer factual questions only – those with definite right or wrong answers – but won't predict the future. Ava and Sophie discover all kinds of uses for the pencil, and Ava's confidence grows with each answer. But it's getting shorter with every sharpening, and when the pencil reveals a scary truth about Ava's family, she realizes that sometimes the bravest people are the ones who live without all the answers...

About this title

About the Author

Kate Messner is a former middle-school English teacher and the author of E. B. White Read Aloud Award winner The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z. and its companion, The Exact Location of Home; Sugar and Ice; Eye of the Storm; Wake Up Missing; All the Answers; The Seventh Wish; Capture the Flag; Hide and Seek; the Marty McGuire chapter book series; the Ranger in Time chapter book series; and several picture books. She lives on Lake Champlain with her husband and two kids. When she's not reading or writing, she loves hiking, kayaking, biking, and watching thunderstorms over the lake. www.katemessner.com
@KateMessner

Reviews

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

Edition details

• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Childrens
• Publication date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1619633744
• ISBN 13: 9781619633742
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256