Creating Innovators: The Making of Young People Who Will Change the World, by Tony Wagner

How do we foster innovation, curiosity, and problem solving skills in our children?  In order to grow the U.S. economy, different approaches are needed to develop a generation of innovators.  To investigate how to develop these skills, Wagner identified and interviewed a variety of young people who exhibit the skills of innovators. He uses their stories to identify common themes in their backgrounds; specifically a penchant for play, which develops into pursuing a passion, and is applied with purpose. He then compares what helped these young people to develop into innovators with the typical family and academic background.  In particular, he describes how our current educational system drives the creativity out of students in favor of teaching to the test.  His interviews with the parents of these young people is particularly interesting, as the parents all realized that their children did best when they were allowed to unleash their curiosity, but they often did not do very well in school.  There are many thought-provoking concepts here, particularly for parents, educators, and librarians.  251 pages.