A Year in My Life: 365 Scribble & Sketch Activities

This activity journal offers numbered writing and drawing prompts, one for each day of the year, which encourage children to consider their daily thoughts and emotions (“What’s the first sentence you said today? Write it down”) and to imagine fantastical scenarios (“Pretend you live in a submarine. Draw your aquatic house, surrounded by underwater animals and plants”). Printed in black and gold, Tilly’s quirky cartoon spot illustrations and decorative frames play into the offbeat, free-association tone struck by the questions and suggestions. The limited physical space available for many of the activities may strike some readers as confining—most pages squeeze in two or three prompts, and there’s only a small square provided in which to “draw the scariest thing you can imagine,” for example—but the notebook could easily serve as a springboard for external creative projects, as well as a log of moments and ideas to revisit. Ages 9–13. (Sept.)