This Will NOT Be on the Test, (Paperback)

This is the book for you if...

1. You feel like a star-shaped peg trying to stuff yourself in a square hole?
2. You itching to redecorate this book cover?
3. You wondering if you're allowed to draw on a book, or worried that your doodles won't be good enough to go on the front cover?

Psst! Parents, teachers, and other grown-up types, down here!

Pop quiz: When does our creative spark flicker out?

After years of teaching adults how to relight it after decades of dormancy, I learned the answer while teaching a content creation course for middle- and high-school-aged kids. Where the pre-teens were enthusiastic, engaged, and happy to experiment, the teens were anxious, self-conscious, and too terrified of failure to take any creative risks. Somewhere between middle- and high school, the creative spark that allows us to heal, inspire, motivate, and create real value for ourselves and others through authentic self-expression, free experimentation, and innovative problem-solving is being extinguished. And that's a big problem. I know because it's my job to help people heal from the burnout, blockage, disconnection, low self-esteem, anxiety, depression, apathy, drama and trauma that inevitably results.

But what if there was a way to short-circuit that whole process and simply arm our kids with the tools they'll need to keep their creative spark ablaze through middle school, high school, and beyond?

This is that tool.

What your kid(s) will get:

• Relatable stories too good not to share
• Age-appropriate lessons and tools to maintain their authentic self-expression throughout their school years and beyond
• Habit-forming frameworks for lifelong learning and growth mindset
• Journal pages with built-in prompts

Kid-tested and parent-approved, this laugh-heavy, lecture-light distillation of the core lessons in my bestselling Creative Living for All book series is the "should shield" I wish I'd had as a kid. At once a permission slip to continue creating and innovating, a guide through the challenges ahead, a user-friendly tool-kit of creativity-boosting exercises, and a journal to help them integrate and make use of those tools right away, this uniquely interactive book is the ideal gift for all the young creators and innovators in your life.