Ideas Are All Around

by Philip C. Stead

Overview

As an author and his dog, Wednesday, walk through their neighborhood, they look at sunflowers, say hi to Frank, a turtle, who makes quick for the water and disappears, and watch a train rumble by as they walk uphill to a big purple house that belongs to their friend Barbara. Wednesday chases squirrels while the two friends discuss fishing and war and how back before the neighborhood was there enormous woolly mammoths roamed where houses now sit.

Thoughts open up to other thoughts, and ideas are born and carried forward, often transforming into other ideas until he finds that ideas really are all around, you just have to know what to do with them. This title has Common Core connections.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781626721814
Publisher:	Roaring Brook Press
Publication date:	03/01/2016
Pages:	48
Product dimensions:	7.90(w) x 11.00(h) x 0.60(d)
Lexile:	AD600L (what's this?)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Philip C. Stead is the author of the 2011 Caldecott Medal book, A Sick Day for Amos McGee. His book, A Home for Bird, received four starred reviews and was called "a deeply satisfying story" by Kirkus Reviews, while his most recent book, Sebastian and the Balloon, has earned three starred reviews. Philip lives with his wife, illustrator Erin E. Stead in Michigan.

Editorial Reviews

Ideas Are All Around…is a meandering meditation on the nature of the mind and its communion with the world, a splendidly unusual prose poem about how creativity works. Illustrated with an inventive mixed-media medley of drawings, stencils and Polaroids, the first-person story follows an archetypal artist tussling with creative block…On a walk with his scruffy dog…he revels in the jubilant simplicity of life we habitually take for granted…Emanating from this wandering wonderment is a sense of our deeply intertwined denizenship and the generous good will permeating our world, if only we pause to notice—a beautiful testament to that old William Jamesian notion that our experience is what we agree to attend to.

The New York Times Book Review - Maria Popova

★ 01/04/2016
Children’s book creators are often asked where they get their ideas. What if they run out? “I have to write a story today,” Stead (Sebastian and the Balloon) starts. “But today I don’t have any ideas.” Instead, he takes his dog, Wednesday, for a walk, recording his journey in an unassuming collection of drawings, prints, and snapshots in Polaroid-style frames. There’s no drama, yet the pages are filled with incident. He and Wednesday see a turtle and some ducks. Stead exchanges greetings with his friend Barbara, whose wise voice warms the pages. (“It’s such a waste,” she says when the subject of war comes up. “We could all go fishing instead.”) He notices the line at the church’s food program. Animals are drawn in close-up, vivid detail (excepting, perhaps, a horse made of blue paint), while the people are small and roughly drawn; they might be anybody, anywhere. Stead’s thoughts come to life in lines structured like verse, the animals he sees and words he hears merging into dreamy half-stories. A long, rich visit with Barbara follows: “Did you know that ten thousand years ago this spot was the bottom of a lake?” she asks. As Stead and Wednesday return home, the things they have talked about and the animals they have seen—all the ideas he’s collected—follow them in a somber parade. Stead’s bits and pieces of drawing and observation, his willingness to lay bare his uncertainty, and his rough sketches of the natural world don’t form a polished or seamless whole. Yet their very fragmentariness tells an important truth about the way artists begin to create. Ages 4–8. Agent: Emily van Beek, Folio Literary Management. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

The art is glorious, creatively mixing small photographs—presented as Polaroids—with ink and watercolor paintings… a provocative, artful journey.”—School Library Journal, starred review


“In all, Stead has given readers a deeply felt, deeply connected story that is homage to creation—and really quite brilliant.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review


“The multimedia artwork…is amazing, with photographs, collage etchings, and splatter art (example: a blue splash of paint transforms into a horse) mingling across vibrant spreads.”—Booklist, starred review


“Stead’s bits and pieces of drawing and observation, his willingness to lay bare his uncertainty, and his rough sketches of the natural world don’t form a polished or seamless whole. Yet their very fragmentariness tells an important truth about the way artists begin to create.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review

"It will reward those receptive to the notion that the world speaks to those who listen."—The Horn Book

From the Publisher

12/01/2016
K-Gr 3—With the unassuming conceit of a woolgathering walk with his dog, Stead provides readers with snapshots of his creative process as he synthesizes seeds of ideas, conversational tidbits, and artful suggestions from the natural world in surprising and delightful ways. The illustrations—a mixture of Polaroid images, monoprints, and collage—are sheer Stead and simply brilliant.

School Library Journal

★ 2015-12-08
A ramble through the neighborhood gets the creative juices going in this picture book. "I have to write a story today" the narrator begins. "But today I don't have any ideas." Ah, tension right off the bat. In this whimsical meditation on the creative process, the narrator takes readers around the neighborhood while walking the dog, Wednesday. The narrator greets Frank, the painted turtle, hears birds, and has coffee with a friend. Stead's sophisticated illustrations, which combine monoprints, collage, and Polaroid photographs, mesh perfectly with the narrative's undercurrent that inspiration is both immediate in its moment-to-moment observations and timeless in its themes of humanity. A blob of spilled paint that looks like a blue horse is introduced into the story early and visually carried throughout, becoming the symbol (as it was for Eric Carle's book, The Artist Who Painted a Blue Horse (2011), and Franz Marc's painting, Blue Horse) of individual creativity. As a story of finding inspiration, younger readers will appreciate Stead's gentle ramblings of imagination and observation. Older readers may begin to pick out the connections that inspire within the small acts of living—planting a flower seed, petting a dog, staring at the clouds, and conversation with a friend. In all, Stead has given readers a deeply felt, deeply connected story that is homage to creation—and really quite brilliant. (Picture book. 4 & up)

Kirkus Reviews