After a summer spent on dusty bookshop shelves sticky-taped on special offer to a dictionary, Penny the Pencil is thrilled to be bought by 8-year-old Ralph the day before school starts. Unlike Penny, Ralph is not looking forward to going back to school. He is a poor student, and an easy target for Bert, the class bully. Penny feels sorry for Ralph, and as her spelling is so good - having been sticky-taped to Dictionary all summer - she manipulates his hand so that he spells correctly and gets full marks on his tests. This behaviour is not appreciated by the other residents of Ralph's pencil case, and terrible events ensue. Softback book.

 

This is number 1 in Penny the Pencil .

There are 192 pages in this book. This book was published 2005 by The Mercier Press Ltd .

The artist, Mike Gordon, specialises in humorous illustrations and has won several awards for his work. He is based in Santa Barbara in California. Eileen O'Hely was born in Australia to Irish parents. She is the author of the successful Penny the Pencil series for 5-8 year olds. This is her first book for older children. She currently lives in Sydney.