PENCIL & ERASER

Teamwork triumphs for these clashing but complementary characters in their second outing.

Sheer excitement propels long-lashed, perennially enthusiastic Pencil right out of brown-skinned Stella’s backpack and onto the sidewalk. Today is Stella’s karate class, and Pencil can’t wait. Nobly, the squat, saturnine, but soft-hearted Eraser jumps to join Pencil. As their unaware owner disappears in the distance, Pencil gives an anguished cry that will elicit smiles from knowing adult readers: “STELLAAA!” Luckily, Eraser has a map, and Pencil airily dismisses the pair’s second problem: Where on the map are they? Pencil does worry when some squirrels offer to help—squirrels love to make things out of wood. The two make an abrupt exit from the squirrels’ home (“Ninja jump!”), and Pencil begs to take a detour into the arcade. Pencil accidentally gets Eraser stuck in a claw machine, but Eraser makes it out unharmed. Finally they reach the dojo in time to applaud Stella and to follow Pencil’s elaborate plan to return to Stella’s backpack. These slight but easy-reading adventures, with subtle but effective characterization, fill four brief chapters, with some joke breaks that Eraser concedes are “kinda funny.” Cartoon graphics have minimal backgrounds, and final pages outline steps to draw them.

Another engaging adventure following tiny but intrepid heroes as they surmount minor mishaps.