Penny and her marble

While out for a stroll with her doll, Penny spots a marble in her neighbor's yard. It is a shiny blue marble, and Penny instantly falls in love with it. Impulsively, Penny nabs the marble. And almost immediately, she is filled with regret and remorse and anguish. Should she have taken the marble? she asks herself. Has she done the wrong thing? Should she return it?

Kevin Henkes has done it again. He has dropped us right inside the mind and heart of a small child. He has bestowed on us a main character so genuine, so palpable, and so human that she might be playing right now in the house next door to us. In Penny we see a child who is all at once both self-seeking and generous, both gently naughty and deeply contrite, a child who, yes, might take something that isn't hers and yet who also has the courage to return something taken to its rightful owner. A charming little story with big ideas for small people, all told in a mere forty-eight pages.