Hi everyone ( just a newbie talking)

[Tiana]

I was homeschooled too. I assume you mean the pokey thing with a pencil in it.

You can get extra large scanners, there are probably places that would let you use one for a fee, also it's possible to take a picture from up high, or scan a few different times at different parts and stitch it together, so don't give up hope on digitizing it. You could also color with pencil crayon, chalk, or pastel if you really wanted to get color on it without damaging the paper, but nothing wrong with a black and white map to start out with. Good luck with your novel.

[rdanhenry]

I was homeschooled too. I assume you mean the pokey thing with a pencil in it.

That one's called a compass*. It is a tool dating at least to the classical era (though without the cool pencil technology we are lucky enough to have).

* - Or you can call it specifically a "drawing compass" when context does not disambiguate between it and a magnetic compass.