Creating Innovators

The Making of Young People Who Will Change the World

By: Tony Wagner

Narrated by: Holter Graham

Tony Wagner’s groundbreaking bestseller—“a road map for parents who want to sculpt their children into innovative thinkers” (USA TODAY) and a guide for “an employer looking to have a pipeline of creative talent” (Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO).

Harvard education expert Tony Wagner explores what parents, teachers, and employers must do to develop the capacities of young people to become innovators. In profiling compelling young American innovators such as Kirk Phelps, product manager for Apple’s first iPhone, and Jodie Wu, who founded a company that builds bicycle-powered maize shellers in Tanzania, Wagner reveals how the adults in their lives nurtured their creativity and sparked their imaginations, while teaching them to learn from failures and persevere. Play, passion, and purpose: These are the forces that drive young innovators.

Wagner takes readers into the most forward-thinking schools, colleges, and workplaces in the country, where teachers and employers are developing cultures of innovation based on collaboration, interdisciplinary problem-solving, and intrinsic motivation. The result is a timely, provocative, and inspiring manifesto that offers crucial insight into creating the change makers of tomorrow.

Read, Don't Act

What did you love best about Creating Innovators?

Very revealing hearing the backgrounds of so many of today's innovators. Many implications for parents and schools alike.

Who was your favorite character and why?

N/A

What didn’t you like about Holter Graham’s performance?

Ridiculous, horrible attempts at "acting" like each person described in the book, male or female, American, European, African, etc. It is actually very, very distracting and annoying. Just R-E-A-D the story! I would be very, very hesitant to purchase any further audio books that Graham had recorded.

Some good information but gets bogged down

The first chapters which lay out the authors premise and the last sections relating to educating and parenting differently have some very good information. But most of the book gets bogged down in stories and interviews that are not that interesting or helpful. This would be a better book of it were shorter and in two volumes- one for parents and one for educators. Also if the stories were edited down to their essentials with an appendix to contain detail. The narrator had a pleasant voice and good energy, but was often too “dramatic” for the nature of what he was reading, making it seem forced and fake.

A must-read for raising happy kids

This book validated everything we did as parents, and made me wish I could do it all over again! Great insights throughout.

Intriguing

Wagner shares a plethora of perspectives and genuinely seeks out what helped and harmed innovators. It can be easy to tune out because the testimonials can run on from time to time. I recommend for parents, those trying to figure out how to inspire millennials or teachers trying to do their best to operate within a broken educational system.

Loved the book.

The narrator was a little hard to listen too, but the message was great!! Thanks for a great book!