Idea Jar

An unseen student narrates Lehrhaupt's celebration of storytelling creativity, pointing out the teacher's Idea Jar. "We keep our story ideas in it," the child explains--scraps of paper with words such as dragon, robot, pirate, and Viking written on them. "There's no such thing as a bad story idea," the student continues, and many ways to tell a tale: "You can write it. Draw it. Talk it." At one point, a red-bearded Viking climbs out of the jar, offers pointers ("That ship should be way bigger"), and generally advocates for Vikings to be part of every story. After the mischievous Viking tips the jar over, a dragon, robot, and other creatures explode into the room, creating chaos that can only be resolved by a story that brings the ideas together. Pilutti's goofy visual comedy--speech balloons with smart-alecky comments, ocean water flooding the classroom--provides laughs, and although Lehrhaupt doesn't really explore or explain how ideas come together to create a story, it seems destined to help jump-start classroom writing assignments. Ages 4-8. Author's agent: Alexandra Penfold, Upstart Crow Literary. Illustrator's agent: Jennifer Rofe, Andrea Brown Literary. (Feb.)

This quasi-instructional picture book introduces the concept of an idea jar for creative writing/storytelling/drawing prompts. Ideas like being in stories (it makes them happy) and things can go sideways when they get bored. When an idea (a Viking) escapes the teacher's idea jar, he wanders around the school attempting to get the students to add him to their stories ("Pssst! Put a Viking in it...Everything is better with a Viking."). Since no one will put him in a story, he gets bored and sets all the other ideas (dragon, robot, cat, giraffe, monster, etc.) free by pushing the idea jar off a desk. Chaos rules until the children, working together, put the ideas in a story—the happy ideas then willingly go back into the idea jar. The instructional aspect of the book is pretty straightforward and melds nicely with the story to keep it effective and interesting. Pilutti's illustrations successfully depict a lot of concepts using fun colors, action sequences, appropriate details and kid-friendly labels. The use of text bubbles, white space, various fonts, idea labels, and dynamic text placement make for a successful mix of text and illustrations. VERDICT An engaging read-aloud that also serves as a good starting point for creativity in various forms. Kids (and their teachers) will be inspired to start their own idea jars!—Catherine Callegari, Reston Regional Library, VA