Unlike people, who are small when they are born and grow big, pencils are big when they are born and grow small."" Oblivious to this destiny, Penny Pencil lived happily in a jar until the day he was put to use. ""What a headache, but Penny had a new pointed head"", -- which got flatter and flatter and flatter. The process repeats itself until a dwarfed Penny is given to a little boy. After being carved, itten, bent and chewed, Penny is discarded, but not quite onto the junk heap, (to the relief of the guilty pencil chewers). He is rescued by Cicero, the mouse, who helps him to be ""the happy lamp that he is today"". Mike Thaler's inimitable sketches personalize and humanize the life, demise and resurrection of this common lowly object with great humor, and in a style the imaginative child will readily appreciate.