A girl named Margarita lives with her two dads. One day, she goes to the park with her friends Daniel and Charlie, brothers who have two moms. On the way, they give some milk to a hungry-looking cat in a cranky neighbor’s yard, and the neighbor gives them each a “magical” gift: a pencil, a sharpener and an eraser.
It turns out they can use their gifts to draw things into existence (and erase them if they make mistakes). After creating some toys and a treehouse for themselves, they decide to create things for others: houses for those who can’t afford them, hospitals, and schools. These magically pop up in the neighborhood.
As the pencil begins to wear out, Margarita draws lots of hearts “so that everyone would love one another,” despite differences of country, skin color, or if they have “two moms or two dads, a mom and a dad, or a single mom or a single dad.”
While well-meaning, the story is disjointed and pedantic, with clunky dialog. The use of bold to stress certain words and phrases feels jarring rather than helpful. The sentiment about everyone loving everyone, while lovely, seems like a non sequitur, since the book hasn’t shown that not everyone loves everyone in the first place. Furthermore, did the neighborhood even need new schools and hospitals? The book doesn’t say. Creating magical things to help specific neighbors with specific problems might have been better than trying to offer large-scale solutions (which feel simplistic, with a whiff of saviorism), while still conveying a similar message about helping others.
An inoffensive title, but not necessarily one to seek out.
Margarita is White, as are her dads; Daniel and Charlie have brown skin and hair, as does one mom; the other is White.
Originally published in 2012 as El lapicero mágico/The magic pencil by Editorial Egales, S.L.
