Ideas are All Around, by Philip C. Snead, a Neal Porter Book from Roaring Book Press, published in 2016, has several interesting features.

The illustrations are small photographs and large drawings and single-colored images all mixed together to tell the story. That collage of styles is interesting and offers a very different visual than most children’s books. I like it. For some reason, it makes me feel like imagination is at work.

The story is about a dog walk and an author who needs to write, since that is his job. It is “a day in the life” kind of idea, introducing people and places and things in a stream-of-consciousness manner, as the man and his dog take a walk.

It doesn’t really seem like a story and it certainly does not have a child protagonist nor a story arc in which the narrator solves a problem through three challenges.

On the other hand, I enjoyed it and the idea of spilling blue paint and seeing a horse in the disaster is encouraging.

Like the McKissack book, What is Given from the Heart, it seems more a tale for adults than for children. Since adults buy picture books, maybe that is a reasonable approach.