Wandering Ways - Picture book

“Imagination will often carry us to worlds that are never there but without it we go nowhere.”? Manu, a young playful girl, bored and restless starts wandering around the house looking for something to do. Just then she catches a tiny object shining through the corner of her eyes. To look it up close she reaches for her favourite wand, a magnifying glass. This wand turns magical as it then transcends her to new whimsical worlds. The mundane objects in her house come together to form a visual obstacle course. This series of fantastical and absurd landscapes challenge her to be imaginative and crafty throughout her journey. By engaging them visually this book inspires children to new ways of seeing. With commercialised toys taking the most of kids’s playtimes today, this story explores the joys of creative play where all one needs is their imagination. Stories and ideas can come from even the smallest of objects. All we have to do is look. The worlds that she travels to are a spin on the activities that kids engage in during creative/ imaginative play. For eg Roleplaying, enacting fantasy stories, tea parties, building castles/ cities, playing superheroes etc. The acts of play are translated into visual environments with twists. By marrying the mundane with the absurd, the story explores these opposites by juxtaposing household objects in absurd worlds to create surprise and intrigue. These objects also act as connectors transporting Manu from one universe to the next. The visual puns drive the story and fuels the girl’s wild and amusing escapades. The character indulges in the act of play itself, by including the intrinsic forms of physical movement. The story starts and ends with a magnifying glass, this symbolises that even small triggers can inspire you to have big and bold ideas which can build worlds! It aims to facilitate a child’s understanding and perception of the world in unique ways.