The Obstinate Pen
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
This is what Uncle Flood wants to write with his new pen:
The following story is all true.
But the pen does not write that sentence. Instead it writes:
You have a big nose!
Who knows what to do with a pen that has a will of its own?
Not Uncle Flood.
Not Officer Wonkle.
But young Horace has an idea. . . .
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The eponymous pen both magical and stubborn isn't content to be the instrument of just any old human's creativity. When a grownup possesses it, the pen will only write insults (instead of writing "The following story is all true," for its first owner, the pen scribbles, "You have a BIG nose") or unwanted advice ("Kiss her, banana head!" it instructs a police officer about to issue a citation to a smitten citizen). But when young Horace gets his mitts on the pen and begins drawing, it turns as docile as a kitty, allowing him to scribble as many drawings as his imagination can muster. The world of this book is more fleshed out and colorful than that of Dormer's Socksquatch (2010), but it's still goofily offbeat: rich people ride in enormous convertible limos, policemen dress like Gilbert and Sullivan characters, and topiary abounds. Dormer's gift for understated whimsy shows no evidence of abating, and adult readers may even detect a little bit of William Steig in his amusement at (and affection for) the follies of humanity. Ages 4 8.
