How does an eraser work?

While doing homework last night with Samara, she asked how erasers can take the pencil marks off of the paper.
Once again, her question stumped me, so I had to say, "Let's find out together." Good thing the internet exists! So apparently when the tip of a pencil is moved across a piece of paper, graphite particles from the pencil stick to the paper fibers. An eraser rubbed against the paper will remove the mark by  removing the graphite. Pencils have been made from graphite, not lead since 1564 when graphite was discovered in England. Since graphite leaves a darker mark than lead and it's not toxic, pencils have been made of graphite for hundreds of years. Who knew? We still refer to pencils as lead pencils!
Edward Naime, an English engineer, is given credit for inventing the eraser in 1770. Before his discovery, people used to use wads of white bread to remove the pencil marks.
After learning all of this, I told my daughter thank for asking such excellent questions. Because of her curiosity, I learn something new often.