Growing Up Creative

Rating:
Summary: Excellent resource for teachers
Review: Dr. Amabile does a fantastic job of explaining that creativity is NOT something you just have or don't have at birth - it depends on an environment that supports creativity and a person's intrinsic motivation. This is a great book full of practical examples that parents and teachers alike can don to help foster creativity in children. As well, any adult who has a creativity block would be wise to read this - you may find that through a few forgiving changes in outlook towards yourself and your own abilities, you do indeed have the ability to be powerfully creative and original.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent guide for raising creative and curious kids!
Review: I originally bought this book in 1990. It was such an excellent book I lent it to many friends and teachers. Unfortunately the last time it was not returned and I have looked everywhere for a replacement. I'm so happy to have found it. This is an easy reading book with fun and easy suggestions on how to create an atmosphere so your children will grow up to be more creative and curious about the world around them. I feel it makes raising children more fun and allows them to grow up feeling more secure about themselves. This book makes a great teacher or school gift!

Rating:
Summary: Nurture creative potential
Review: This book is wonderful in a number of ways, none of which, unfortunately, really get to the point of creativity. It is a light survey of the actual research results on creativity done in a very well communicated way that most people can understand. It does not distort or exaggerate points so it is above the zillion books on 6 ways to be a genius and 12 ways to think like Linus Pauling. It is comprehensive, balanced, and comprehensible. So, what is it missing? It is missing something important.

I guess, my gut reaction was--I want my kids to be about 20 times as creative as this book wants them to be. The soul of creating is what is missing. You get an academic researcher soul showing you what creating is. I would rather have a creator's soul showing me. In a perfect world you could get onto Harvard's faculty while having a creator's soul; in our actual world you have to publish little research articles and be liked by journal editors and well placed colleagues. There is too much intangible fitting in and playful insoucience where there needs to be drive, passion, persistence, immense challenge, penetrating tough fields for year after year, visiting conferences with mom and dad, playfully spotting hot and dying subfields at them, imagining what thought operation produced some new conference topic and so on. THis book is a great foundation for creating "creative" people who lack the soul and toughness to create. It is too polite in some ways.

Rating:
Summary: Not my kids you don't
Review: This book is wonderful in a number of ways, none of which, unfortunately, really get to the point of creativity. It is a light survey of the actual research results on creativity done in a very well communicated way that most people can understand. It does not distort or exaggerate points so it is above the zillion books on 6 ways to be a genius and 12 ways to think like Linus Pauling. It is comprehensive, balanced, and comprehensible. So, what is it missing? It is missing something important.

I guess, my gut reaction was--I want my kids to be about 20 times as creative as this book wants them to be. The soul of creating is what is missing. You get an academic researcher soul showing you what creating is. I would rather have a creator's soul showing me. In a perfect world you could get onto Harvard's faculty while having a creator's soul; in our actual world you have to publish little research articles and be liked by journal editors and well placed colleagues. There is too much intangible fitting in and playful insoucience where there needs to be drive, passion, persistence, immense challenge, penetrating tough fields for year after year, visiting conferences with mom and dad, playfully spotting hot and dying subfields at them, imagining what thought operation produced some new conference topic and so on. THis book is a great foundation for creating "creative" people who lack the soul and toughness to create. It is too polite in some ways.

Rating:
Summary: Nurture creative potential
Review: When you are trying to help a child develop her or his creative potential, you don't have to worry about the nature-nurture debate. Nurture is your only option. This book is a useful introduction to the developmental social psychology of creativity, and it is a good place to start for nurturing the realization of creative potential. Helping kids become more creative is a good cause, and "Growing Up Creative" is a good book.