Zora loves to draw. When she picks up her pencil to draw, she can feel the Voom in her arm. It’s like her love of drawing just takes over her, and she can’t stop until she’s finished her picture. Even though Zora is only 12, drawing is something she can share with her mom. Her mom loves to draw too, and sometimes the two of them just sit together and work on pictures. Zora draws a lot of horses, because her little sister Frankie loves horses. She wants to learn how to ride, but her mother thinks 6 is a little too young, but she’s promised Frankie can get riding lessons for her next birthday.
But when their mother takes them out to their favorite pancake restaurant, she tells them that she’s sick. She has cancer and will have to get treatment, but she’ll get better. Zora picks up her pencil and draws her mom as a superhero, with boots and a cape, ready to take on cancer.
But ten months later, she’s still sick. In fact, she’s sicker than ever. They all had to move from their home in Duluth, Minnesota, to Pennsylvania, where her grandmother lives. Zora and Frankie are living with their grandmother while their mother is in the hospital. She keeps insisting she’s going to get better, but Zora wants her to face how sick she is. She draws Sick Mom, a realistic picture of how she looks in the hospital bed, and shows it to her mother.
That night, her grandmother gets the call from the hospital. Their mother died. Zora blames herself, thinking that it was the picture she drew that caused her death. She decides not to draw anymore. Then Frankie asks Zora if she’ll draw her a horse for her birthday. Zora tries, but she just can’t feel her Voom, so she traces one from one of Frankie’s horse books. But that just makes her feel worse, so she grabs her green pencil and starts to scribble all over it. Then she grabs one of her old drawings and scribbles that out too. And another. And another.
Frankie tries to stop her, but then the scribbles become real, growing out of the drawing, and coming for the sisters. As the scribbles get bigger and stronger, they wrap around the two sisters until they’re trapped. Zora doesn’t know what’s going on, and then she’s dropped, and she falls and falls and falls until she lands in something soft. Eventually she realizes it’s sand, but it’s not like any sand she’s ever seen before. As she pulls herself up, she realizes that it’s sand that she’s drawn. She tries to find Frankie, and the two of them look around. Everything is something that Zora has drawn.
She meets some of the creatures she’s drawn, from the hamsters in pajamas to a robot and a witch and so many horses. She finds out that they landed in Pencilvania, and it’s where all of Zora’s drawings go. It’s a place where they are happy. They play and dance and eat pancakes. But now there is a horse named Viscardi, a horse overtaken by the Scribs, who wants to destroy everything and everyone in Pencilvania.
The prophecy says that Zora will save them. That she is 200 feet tall and eats balloons and shoots lasers out of her eyes. But Zora knows that none of that is true. She’s not 200 feel tall. She doesn’t eat balloons. And her eyes don’t shoot lasers. And she doesn’t think she can save Pencilvania. She’s not even sure of she can herself and Frankie home.
But with her sister counting on her, with all the creatures she’s drawn needing her help, and knowing that both Super Mom and Sick Mom are somewhere in Pencilvania, Zora knows that if Pencilvania has any hope of surviving, it’s up to her. It is entirely her creation, after all. But will she be able to be The Girl of a Million Ideas who saves them all, or will she get scribbled out with all the rest of Pencilvania?
Author Stephanie Watson and illustrator Sofia Moore have created a powerful story of grief and healing in Pencilvania. These two sisters have their world turned upside down when they find out that their mother has cancer, and the changes to their lives that come from that leave them feeling lost and confused. Kids who have had to deal with major life changes, who have had to deal with a parent’s illness, who has dealt with grief will find understanding in these pages.
I thought Pencilvania was a really lovely story. The journey through the drawn universe, reminiscent of Milo’s journey in The Phantom Tollbooth or even Dorothy’s journey through Oz, is a lovely way of using Zora’s art to help her find healing and forgive herself for her last picture of her mother. This is not always an easy book to read, as the grief of these two sisters is heart-breaking, but the strength they find on their journey through Pencilvania is inspiring.
Egalleys for Pencilvania were provided by Sourcebooks Kids through NetGalley, with many thanks.
