{ "item_title" : "The Phoenix Pencil Company", "item_author" : [" Allison King "], "item_description" : "A REESE’S BOOK CLUB PICKIn this dazzling debut novel, a hidden and nearly forgotten magic—of Reforging pencils, bringing the memories they contain back to life—holds the power to transform a young woman’s relationship with her grandmother, and to mend long-lost connections across time and space.Monica Tsai spends most days on her computer, journaling the details of her ordinary life and coding for a program that seeks to connect strangers online. A self-proclaimed recluse, she's always struggled to make friends and, as a college freshman, finds herself escaping into a digital world, counting the days until she can return home to her beloved grandparents. They are now in their nineties, and Monica worries about them constantly—especially her grandmother, Yun, who survived two wars in China before coming to the States, and whose memory has begun to fade. Though Yun rarely speaks of her past, Monica is determined to find the long-lost cousin she was separated from years ago. One day, the very program Monica is helping to build connects her to a young woman, whose gift of a single pencil holds a surprising clue. Monica’s discovery of a hidden family history is exquisitely braided with Yun’s own memories as she writes of her years in Shanghai, working at the Phoenix Pencil Company. As WWII rages outside their door, Yun and her cousin, Meng, learn of a special power the women in their family possess: the ability to Reforge a pencil’s words. But when the government uncovers their secret, they are forced into a life of espionage, betraying other people’s stories to survive. Combining the cross-generational family saga and epistolary form of A Tale for the Time Being with the uplifting, emotional magic of The Midnight Library, Allison King’s stunning debut novel asks: who owns and inherits our stories? The answers and secrets that surface on the page may have the unerasable power to reconnect a family and restore a legacy.", "item_img_path" : "https://covers1.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/06/344/623/0063446235_b.jpg", "price_data" : { "retail_price" : "28.99", "online_price" : "14.49", "our_price" : "14.49", "club_price" : "14.49", "savings_pct" : "50", "savings_amt" : "14.50", "club_savings_pct" : "50", "club_savings_amt" : "14.50", "discount_pct" : "55", "store_price" : "14.50" } }

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In Allison King’s debut novel, The Phoenix Pencil Company, Monica Tsai uncovers the magic of her ancestors, and in turn, her own true purpose, thanks to an unassuming pencil. It is August 2018, and Monica has just wrapped up her first year as an engineering undergrad at Swarthmore. She is eager to spend the rest of her summer at home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she was raised by her Grandma Yun and Grandpa Torou, both now in their 90s. If ever there was an award for the best grandparents, Yun and Torou would certainly be top contenders; they raised Monica with all the care humanly possible. However, they’ve told Monica little about their turbulent past escaping the Japanese occupation of Shanghai. When Yun accidentally lets slip a story about her cousin Meng flicking sesame seeds at her as a young girl, Monica’s interest is piqued. She is determined to find Meng and reunite the cousins, who last saw each other over 70 years ago. And she has a starting point, thanks to her computer science professor’s project, EMBRS, a platform for private journaling that scans users’ entries to recommend personal connections. Monica’s EMBRS search for a mention of Meng connects her to Louise Sun, a Princeton student who met Meng while researching in Shanghai. Louise agrees to meet Monica, and brings a strange gift from Meng for Yun: a single pencil, and no note. The gift prompts Yun to tell Monica about their family’s pencil company in Shanghai, and reveal the ancestral magic running through their veins: the ability to “reforge” pencils, causing them to share the words they’ve written and the memories of whoever wrote with them. Using a pencil she’s kept all these years, Yun finally shares the heartbreaking story of how she escaped the Japanese occupation. Meanwhile, Louise and Monica stay in touch and develop their own connection. King’s tender story has a lovely balance of the old and new. Through chapters that alternate between the journal entries of Monica and Yun, we see a shifting world, the blessings and curses of their family’s ability and above all, the power of perseverance. Parallels between the magical pencils and the EMBRS software raise important ethical questions about data and privacy. The Phoenix Pencil Company is a coming-of-age novel that will resonate.