ALA Booklist
(Sun Feb 01 00:00:00 CST 2015)
Like a more sophisticated Harold and the Purple Crayon, this sparce picture book by celebrated children's book illustrator Myers, depicts whole worlds created by only the pen in the artist's hand. After admitting that he sometimes feels small compared to powerful people, he says, "Then I remember I have my pen." From there, he demonstrates how much power his pen gives him. First he draws a giant man in work clothes; then he shrinks that man down to fit in the hand of a girl. A tiny version of the artist rides a huge T. rex, then sails across the ocean in a boat made of folded newspaper. Myers' imaginative and realistic black-ink drawings, each one full of detail and enlivened with crosshatched shading, are scattered over each page, some appearing as ordered compositions while others look like playful doodles. In straightforward lines, Myers mentions his worries, the people he loves, and the realities of failure, depicted in page-covering ink splotches. Imaginative kiddos will appreciate this empowering ode to creativity.
School Library Journal
(Sun Feb 01 00:00:00 CST 2015)
K-Gr 3 Aurelio is a young artist with big eyes, a fedora, and, most importantly, a vivid imagination. In ink renderings on pages that maintain interest by alternating between black on white and the perception of the reverse, the boy contrasts the sense of being smallevoked when he sees rich and famous peoplewith the power he wields with his pen. The "Dali" headline on the book jacket's folded newspaper boat foreshadows playful bits of surrealism, e.g., an elephant in a teacup, a man who looms large on the left page in the hand of a small girl on the right. This tender composition has a familial, personal feeling. The versatile drawing instrument worries about war, expresses love, and "wears satellite sneakers with computer laces." Myers intersperses literal depictions of the pen at work (creating the child's face) with images that are described in more fanciful terms. Where the artist is walking upside down (no pen in sight), the text reads: "My pen tap-dances on the sky and draws clouds with its feet." The first-person possessive voice wears a little thin, and the connection among the pages is loose. Nevertheless, Myers has assembled a visually arresting array of sketches that will likely attract the interest of children who enjoy drawing themselves. Indeed, the last sentence is an invitation to "Let those worlds inside your pen out!" VERDICT The striking images and important message outweigh any narrative issues. Wendy Lukehart, District of Columbia Public Library