What Do You Do With an Idea?

 

       I'm thrilled to be guest posting over at the Nerdy Book Club today! I know some of you first found yourself here because of my picture book reviews. Since I'm expanding my focus to different genres, I only review titles that are truly outstanding. This is one can't get out of my head- What Do You Do With an Idea?

               Something happens to us as we get older.  We used to have time to dream and to ask ourselves, “What if?”  Then we had even more time to let each scenario play out- to watch it crumble or watch it grow.  Now we don’t have time for anything.  We don’t have time to communicate unless it’s via text and half the words are abbreviated.  We don’t have time to visit so-and-so who moved across town or the time to read all those books that keep piling up.  And, most of the time, we don’t even have time to think.  That’s what happens- we stop thinking as we age.  We let a famous celebrity, our favorite television show, or the nightly news tell us what to think.  Even if we silenced the noise and finally heard our own voice blurt out an original thought, we might find ourselves asking, “Now what?  What do you do with an idea?”

               Author Kobi Yamada and illustrator Mae Besom guide us on the course of one child’s conviction in the celebrated picture book What Do You Do With an Idea? Yamada’s verse lifts us from whispers of self-doubt to bellows of confidence and joy.  Besom’s delicate pencil and watercolor pictures tip the scales from a hint of hues to a world overflowing with colors.  The tale centers on a child, neither obviously a girl nor boy, to whom we can all relate.

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