Mostly Magic, by Ruth Chew

Two Brooklyn kids meet a friendly plumber and a black-and-white cat, find a set of unusual magical items - a folding ladder and a pencil - and use them to have adventures. The ladder can transport them to other places (conveniently, it shrinks when folded), and whatever the pencil writes becomes reality for the thing it's written on - so you can write "sardine" on a banana peel to feed a cat (but you need to write "canned" if you don't want it to be alive), or 3" on your arm to shrink yourself to the size of a mouse (not wise when you're around a cat).

Ruth Chew's books are the ultimate in translating childhood imaginary games into fantasy books, as far as I'm concerned. They take me straight back to the good parts of my pre-internet childhood, when I imagined walking around on the ceiling, shrinking to explore my house or garden at mouse-size, or being able to conjure up a box of my favorite cookies. In her books, kids get to do exactly that. They have just enough danger and tension to be exciting, but the overall atmosphere is curiosity, adventure, exploration, and delight.

My favorite part of this one is when the mouse-sized kids dive into the neighbor's aquarium and explore it. The illustration is incredibly charming.



Available on Kindle as part of this collection: