The Creativity Project: An Awesometastic Story Collection

This anthology features 44 pieces of writing and art from children’s book authors and illustrators. The works are broad-ranging in terms of content, medium, and theme, yet they are all the result of an experiment spearheaded by Sharp, an educator and cofounder of the Nerdy Book Club. Participants were asked to submit creative prompts, which he dispersed among them; each individual was then tasked with creating an original piece inspired by a prompt. For each selection, the writer or artist includes the lines of prose or artwork that they received and from whom, followed by their response. Sophie Blackall’s prompt for Adam Gidwitz is a drawing of a woman holding an enormous fish; Gidwitz replies with a deadpan story about a girl whose mother’s new boyfriend is a fish. Laurel Snyder invites Lisa Brown to take an abstract idea (like “joy” or “hunger”) and imagine it as a character. Brown creates a comic that personifies “quiet” as a superhero-like figure who loves to read, listen, and take notice. An end section includes 44 additional prompts from the participants for readers, which further emphasizes the collection’s celebration of “the way ideas can be story seeds that take root and blossom.” Ages 8–12. (Mar.)