Pencilvania

Gr 4-6–Twelve-year-old Zora was an artist. When her mom died of leukemia, Zora and her younger sister Frankie move from Duluth, MN, to Pittsburgh to live with Grandma Wren, their mom’s mother whom they barely know. In her grief over losing her mother, Zora also loses her interest and ability to draw, what she and her sister call her “Voom.” One day when Zora is overwhelmed by her feelings, she and Frankie are pulled into a land of Zora’s drawings, Pencilvania. Each picture is alive, three-dimensional, and attached to a memory. The villain of the land, a horse named Viscardi, has captured many of the creatures with binding black scribbles. Fueled by Zora’s sorrow, he aims to destroy the world of drawings. In this fantasy land of her own creations, Zora must confront her grief over the loss of her mother and the changes her death brought to her own life. She uses her Voom to save her sister and her world of drawings. “Zora’s” pencil artwork appears as illustrations throughout book.