Is it possible to write a preface to The Adventures of Pencil and Eraser without sounding sedate or even stuffy? How can any adult mind match the spontaneity, creative enthusiasm and lateral thinking of what follows?

Reader, be prepared: your interest will be hooked by this page-turner penned by a seven-year-old. Here is a narrative that will appeal to many age groups for the very reason that it helps us to transcend categories like age groups. It is a story about friendship that balances local colour (the Montreal metro, or subway, becomes the “meter-tro,” for reasons you will soon see) with global and historical themes (who hasn’t heard of Leonardo da Paintbrush?). The writing is clever and funny, and the pacing is perfect: an ominous castle is re-described a few pages later as a “FANCY shed.”

My only advice is to turn the page quickly so you may begin to marvel and laugh!

–Chris Worsley, Montreal