Book Report: What Do You Do with an Idea?

33. Kobi Yamada, with illustrations by Mae Besom, What Do You Do with an Idea? (2013) (6/29/21)

I don't recall where I ran across this picture book, but the title was intriguing, so I bit. It's a simple story: a child, one day, "had an idea." He's not quite sure what to do with the idea, and acts like it it doesn't belong to him. "But it followed me." He worries what people will say about his idea. But he also likes having it around. It wants attention, which the child gives it, and it grows bigger. Eventually the child embraces the idea, and feeds it and loves it. The idea encourages the child to think big, to see things differently. And then one day, the idea "spread its wings, took flight, and burst into the sky. . . . It went from being here to being everywhere. . . . And then, I realized what you do with an idea... You change the world."

That's the story. The idea itself is an odd little egg-like creature on chicken legs, topped with a crown. Which reminds me of Maurice Sendak's Max. 

I enjoyed the illustration style, which evolves from monochrome brown into full color as the idea grows to maturity. But the story itself? Sure, it's a picture book, intended for kids, but so many of the picture books I've read have also been for adults, somehow. This one felt perfunctory, uninspired. Even a little creepy. The author, Kobi Yamada, is described on the jacket as "the creator of many inspiring gift books and ideas as well as the president of Compendium, a company of amazing people doing amazing things." That right there makes me think, capitalist hack. (Seriously: "inspiring gift books"?)

I look at reviews on Goodreads, and some people—mostly mothers of small children—love the book (the overall rating is 4.49 out of 5). I, however, resonated with the two-star reviews. Like this one, by Andy:

In this weird book, an idea is a sort of a tumor that shows up and keeps growing until you can't hide it anymore and then it bursts and gets all over everything.

This is inspiring how exactly? Why is the kid so passive? Why does he/she have no role in generating or evaluating the idea? What if the idea is something terrible like...?

By all means, fight for a good idea, whether it's yours or not, but don't fight for your idea whether it's bad or good. That's madness. Not every idea is brilliant just because it's yours. Sorry.

What we desperately need to be teaching people now is discernment: between truth/lies, good/evil, honest/corrupt, competent/incompetent, useful/worthless, etc. Narcissistic overconfidence doesn't seem to be the thing in short supply.

I'll just let Andy present my basic feeling about this book. I won't be seeking out Kobi Yamada again, but I might look for more Mae Besom illustrations. She's got a lovely style.