RUBY AND THE PEN

In a wish-fulfillment tale with an allegorical drift from Australia, anything Ruby draws with a certain pen comes true.

The nose-picking headmaster, the sycophantic house mistress, the aptly named teacher Miss Vermin, and her sneering dorm-mate Sasha Sword are all vicious bullies who make life at her new boarding school a misery. So 12-year-old Ruby is thrilled to discover that her new fountain pen is magical. How satisfying it is to draw Sasha with a huge exploding zit and a massive splot of bird poop on her head…and then see both calamities come to pass. Better yet, when Sasha steals the pen, the bees she draws attacking Ruby instead descend on her! So thoroughly does Ruby’s newfound power go to her head, though, that her personality begins to change. Even best friend Faviola is turning away—not from jealousy, Ruby ultimately realizes, but because everything that she draws either hurts someone or makes things worse. But even as she’s making the creditable decision to put the pen away, the discovery that the headmaster is secretly selling a patch of the school’s woodland to be leveled and made into a theme park sparks a desperate, climactically successful search for alternate ways to scupper the scheme. Afterward, though, she’s determined to be rid of the pen—but that’s another story. Dignam’s energetic ink-and-wash illustrations enhance the Roald Dahl–esque hijinks. Ruby reads White; names and illustrations signal diversity in the supporting cast.

An engaging study of power and moral choices.