A wonderful exploration of art and creativity. I imagine pairing it with Viva Frida, or Harold, or (if you must) Draw!. Someday, I will do a display of all of the great black and white picturebooks that no one checks out. ( )

My Pen is a sweet book about how a young man, we are never given his name, feels empowered by the abilities his pen allows him to have, showing us the things he can create with his pen. The story begins with our protagonist expressing how overwhelming and small he feels in the world sometimes, but through the power of his pen, he can do anything. When using this book as a mentor text, the story has a great example of a metaphor. Our narrator states that his pen makes all the fantastic things in the story happen. His pen is a metaphor for a writer's imagination. For example, there is a part where the narrator states. "My pen rides dinosaurs and hides an elephant in a teacup." I feel like that would be a great way of explaining to students that we can see his pen isn't actually doing that but, his imagination through his pen allows him to write or draw those actions.
The illustrations are done in black and white, appearing as though drawn in the pen from the story. On the page stating how our protagonist feels small, the background is black and the text white, with no pictures on it. But when our protagonist remembers his pen, the background is white and the text is black, with illustrations, almost like a piece of drawing or notebook paper. I believe that that is a way of displaying the possibilities that come from imagination and a pen. We follow the story along with our protagonist as he travels to different locations, creates fantastic scenarios, and seeing different people, all with the beautiful black and illustrations setting our scenes. The illustrations in this book really drive the story along, encouraging the reader with all we can create. I really enjoyed this book and would recommend it. ( )

A story of a pen and the wonders it can unlock.

My Pen tells the story of a young boy who does not have much, but one thing he does have is a pen. This pen can take him into different worlds as he can create anything in his imagination with this pen. The theme of this book is imagination, creation, and art. In the classroom this can be used as an introduction to an art project where we only use pens to draw and shade whatever our imagination desires.

My Pen written and illustrated by Christopher Myers is imaginative black and white story of a young boy using his pen to explore the world around him. The books begin with the boy feeling small because he is not rich or famous but then he remembers with a pen he can create everything and he does. He creates dinosaurs, computers sneakers, newspaper boats that can float to Africa. The themes of this book are imagination and creativity through drawing and writing. ( )