30th March Pencil Day

National Pencil Day commemorates the day Hymen Lipman received his patent for a pencil with an eraser attached. Before that time, pencils and erasers existed separately. Lipman combined the two making two tools much more convenient to use. 

In the United States, most pencils are painted yellow. Did you know that Roald Dahl used only pencils with yellow casings to write his books? He began each day with six sharpened pencils and only when all six became unusable did he resharpen them.

I first wrote about this day in 2011, but so many more books about pencils have been published since then, that there is enough now for a very good display and fun lunchtime activities.

I have students who have read Linus the Little Yellow Pencil  by Scott Magoon and then drawn faces on their own pencils, but there are other books to explore:

• Pencil by Ann Ingalls and Dean Griffiths

• Pencils on Strike  by Jennifer Jones 

• Little Red Writing by Joan Holub and Melissa Sweet

• When Pencil Met Eraser by Karen Kilpatrick

• Perfect  by Max Amato

• Pencil & Eraser  by Jenny Alvarado (book 1 in a new graphic series)

• Dreams of a Pencil  by Xiaonan Zhang

• Arabella and the Magic Pencil  by Stephanie Ward

• My Pencil and Me  by Sara Varon

Look here for more titles.

And keep an eye out for these two that are coming soon:

• The Pencil  by  Susan Avingaq   

• The Pencil  by Hye-Yun Kim
a wordless picture book, follows a pencil's life cycle from tree to factory to store shelf and back to tree, drawn on the pages of a book.

And if you can't celebrate Pencil Day, then you can use them for a display on Rubber Eraser Day on 15th April.

Eraser  by Anna Kang