CREATIVELY HUMAN

An earnest pep talk for beginning or tentative inventors, artists, upcyclers, and would-be innovators.

Defining creativity broadly enough to include deciding what to wear in the morning, Peterson offers readers plenty of encouragement. Though her grasp on historical background is sometimes weak (evidence of bead making goes back much further than 2,000 years, and Marco Polo did not bring piñatas to Mexico), her tally of potential ways and means of expression displays a free-ranging imagination. Accompanied by a running list of alphabetically arranged creative activities from acting to Zackenstil painting, she jumbles together quick references to everything from scientific inventions to tattoos and hand-painted “kindness rocks,” introductions to working innovators in different countries, a list of traditional media, a catalog of advances in adaptive and assistive technology, and affirmations that arts and crafts are helpful, whether for therapy or raising environmental awareness. “Art, music, dance, theater, architecture and design all have the potential to change the world we live in,” she writes. Her credo can be taken as “Everyone is creative!” In the color photos and graphic images scattered throughout, the figures engaged in everything from dancing to making sand castles are as diverse in age as they are in race, physical ability, and cultural cues.

Wide-ranging and rousing in tone.