What if you had all the answers??

I have been plugging my way through my next children’s book, All the Answers by Kate Messner. It’s a genius idea and the story’s plot is well crafted. Here is the book’s preview on her website:

What if your pencil had all the answers? Would you ace every test? Would you know what your teachers were thinking? When Ava Anderson finds a scratched up pencil she doodles like she would with any other pencil. But when she writes a question in the margin of her math quiz, she hears a clear answer in a voice no one else seems to hear.

With the help of her friend Sophie, Ava figures out that the pencil will answer factual questions only – those with definite right or wrong answers – but won’t predict the future. Ava and Sophie discover all kinds of uses for the pencil, and Ava’s confidence grows with each answer. But it’s getting shorter with every sharpening, and when the pencil reveals a scary truth about Ava’s family, she realizes that sometimes the bravest people are the ones who live without all the answers…

The books begs the question, “Is knowledge power?” or is “the less you know is sometimes better?” Immediately, I think about genetic testing as Alzheimer’s runs heavily in my family. I’ve contemplated if I would want to know if I have the gene for this debilitating disease for prevention purposes or would that knowledge destroy my outlook on life? I believe the latter to be true, so I opt to live blind and hopeful a cure will be discovered before I lose my mind (as if I haven’t already!)

Ava is an anxious child and how she uses the pencil is quite interesting. Although the pencil was first discovered by using it on a Math test, she implements a rule NOT to use it for tests (because that would be cheating). As the story goes, she gets greedy for answers, answers that may have been better left unknown. Her anxiety keeps her away from new and unknown situations, afraid to tackle challenges that seem scary. My oldest is going through this as well. Ava, like my daughter, questions why she has to feel this anxiety. Why does it affect her and not her peers? As I’m heading into the end of this book, I’m anxious to see how she faces her family’s challenge (not going to give that away to you!), and how this challenge might change her outlook on life. Will she surprise herself by taking the lead and being brave for the sake of her family?

This book begs a question for discussion:

“What if your pencil has all the answers?”

Until next week!

Dr. K.