Award-winning author Peter Markus delivers an uplifting and imaginative chronicle of teaching writing to elementary students in Detroit public schools

What if doorbells used smell instead of sound? What if watches told time more slowly on weekends? Designers at the ground-breaking firm IDEOthe most innovative design company in the worldpush themselves to ask seemingly outrageous questions like these daily as they work to construct the products that shape our lives. Following 12 design experiments conceived by designers at IDEO, I Miss My Pencil takes a voyeuristic look at what designers do daily, might get to do once, and sometimes only hope to do. Each experiment is made real through collaboration, sketching, prototyping, fabrication, and photographing to go beyond the conceptual to the curiously concrete.

From the best-selling artist and YouTube art instructor, this book features step-by-step lessons that show you how to draw professional-quality portraits, landscapes, travel sketches, and animals using only two ordinary pencils. Great art doesn't have to be expensive. For the cost of a regular graphite writing pencil and an equally ordinary black colored pencil, you can create drawings worthy of framing and displaying. In this straightforward, aspiring artist's guide to rendering a variety of popular subjects with only two pencils, artist and art instructor Mark Crilley presents a direct, approachable, and achievable method for drawing just about anything. The Two-Pencil Method breaks down Crilley's techniques across six chapters of five lessons each. In each lesson, you'll learn how the two-pencil method can add depth and shading, allowing you to create bold and distinctive drawings that go beyond mere sketchbook doodles. The book moves from a primer on drawing basics to step-by-step examples of still lifes, landscapes, animals, travel sketches, and portraits. With each chapter, Crilley's confident and encouraging voice and expert insights demonstrate how to achieve stunning artistic results from the simplest of art materials.

A purple marker shows his friends that being creative means sometimes coloring outside the lines in When Pencil Met the Markers, the imaginative, inspiring, and colorful follow-up to When Pencil Met Eraser from writers Karen Kilpatrick and Luis O. Ramos, Jr., and illustrator German Blanco. Perfect for back to school and all year round! Meet the Markers! They love to color. But Purple Marker colors everywhere—even outside the lines. When the other markers call his creativity a mistake, it’s up to Pencil and Eraser to help Purple discover how making mistakes and making art go hand-in-hand. This hilarious and clever picture book allows Pencil and Eraser to show Purple Marker—and the rest of us—how to turn our messes into successes and do what makes us happy. With engaging art and adorable characters, When Pencil Met the Markers gives center stage to every kid's favorite classroom materials, making this a perfect gift for teachers and the first day of school.

101 Textures in Colored Pencil provides step-by-step instruction and examples of a multitude of textures for creating realistic masterpieces in colored pencil.

Sara Varon's My Pencil and Me is a playful picture book that’s perfect for young artists, writers, and makers—especially if they struggle with confidence or writer's block. Sara loves to draw and tell stories, but sometimes it can be difficult to get started. What if she doesn't have any good ideas or her drawings turn out terrible?! Lucky for Sara, she has a friend who is always by her side—her pencil. With a little help from Pencil, Sara learns it's okay if her story isn't perfect, as long as she's using her imagination and having fun.

Learn to draw incredibly photorealistic pets, exotic animals, horses, and more with Realistic Animals in Colored Pencil in this follow-up to Realistic Portraits in Colored Pencil and Realistic Still Life in Colored Pencil.

This the story of how a young man turned $25 into more than 200 schools around the world and the guiding steps anyone can take to lead a successful and significant life. The author began working summers at hedge funds when he was just sixteen years old, sprinting down the path to a successful Wall Street career. But while traveling he met a young boy begging on the streets of India, who after being asked what he wanted most in the world, simply answered, "A pencil." This small request led to a staggering series of events that took the author backpacking through dozens of countries before eventually leaving one of the world's most prestigious jobs at Bain & Company to found Pencils of Promise, the organization he started with just $25 that has since built more than 200 schools around the world. This book chronicles the author's journey to find his calling, as each chapter explains one clear step that every person can take to turn your biggest ambitions into reality, even if you start with as little as $25. His story takes readers behind the scenes with business moguls and village chiefs, world-famous celebrities and hometown heroes. It is filled with compelling stories and shareable insights. All proceeds from this book support Pencils of Promise.

The pencil is a single tool that has the power to reset mindsets, enhance thinking, improve retention, recall, and comprehension, calm us and make us smile...all this from our pencil! My Pencil Made Me Do It is a unique, hands-on, create-to-connect and doodle-to-learn book that will have readers DISCOVERING powerful moments, LEARNING the power behind visual thinking, and doodling to learn. Through honest perspective and creative insight, Carrie opens educators and students to VISUALIZING their thinking and their learning while enabling them to experience how they can bring visual thinking into our world. After reading this book, you can expect to: CONNECT with your very own visual learner and the deep power this holds. DOODLE your way through meaningful visual- and doodle-filled activities. REPEAT this creative epiphany tomorrow to bring out the best in yourself, your teaching, your children, and your students!

Kids use pencils everyday. Read to find out how a pencil is made. Paired to the fiction title Where is My Eraser?.