Idea Jar by Adam Lehrhaupt, illustrated by Deb Pilutti

c.2018, Simon & Schuster

$17.99/$23.99 Canada

40 pages

“Read me a story.” That’s something you probably ask at least once a day. “Let’s have a story and a snuggle.” “Please, just one more bedtime book?”

You love hearing what happens to the characters in tales you love, so ask someone to tell a story or read the new book Idea Jar by Adam Lehrhaupt, illustrated by Deb Pilutti, and you can tell one of your own.

On your teacher’s desk somewhere, she may keep an Idea Jar. It’s not very big, and it’s not really small. It’s just the right size for story ideas, which is what she keeps in there. She says “a story can be about anything we want.”

Let’s say your friend puts a slip of paper into the Idea Jar. On that paper, your friend writes “Space Robot.” Another friend put “horseless cowgirl” on a slip of paper. Your idea might be about a “giant dragon.”

What kind of story happens when you put them all together? Is it exciting? Or funny? Whatever it is, it’ll be good because “there’s no such thing as a bad story idea.”

And how will you tell your story? Of course, you can write it down with a pen or pencil, but you can also draw your story in colorful pictures. You can tell it out loud or YELL IT OUTSIDE, or you can do a combination of all of these things.

However you do it, you should do it soon because ideas need to be made into stories or they get “rowdy. That can be trouble.” They can make a mess, if they get out of hand.

Things can really get wild. So, “start with one idea.” Add a second idea. Add another one or two. Mix things up a little, add some fun and when you’re done, see what else you can do.

Idea Jar is a great little book, but here’s the most important thing you need to know about it: It’s not any fun by itself. It’s not going to take much to change that, though.

The scarcity of words inside this book will make kids look more carefully at artist Deb Pilutti’s pictures here – and those pictures practically beg for action, which means you’ll have to find your own jar in which to put slips of paper and ideas, and you’ll have to leave it all accessible to little thinkers.

That’s the whole idea behind Idea Jar – to make stories of random, unconnected subjects. Without that jar and the tales your child can create with it, author Adam Lehrhaupt’s book is just paper. Get that jar, though, and watch what happens.

This book is a great way to point your 4- to 7-year-old in a direction that has everything to do with creative imagination and absolutely nothing to do with electronic entertainment. It could also be the perfect spark for a great travel game on your next vacation, or a rainy-day pastime at school or home.

Get Idea Jar; it could be the beginning of a beautiful story.

Terri Schlichenmeyer has been reading since she was three years old and never goes anywhere without a book. She lives on a hill in Wisconsin with two dogs and 14,000 books.