September 24, 2012

Nighttime Ninja Meets Cardboard Mania


Maybe you've heard of Caine's Arcade....An enterprising young man with time on his hands and a lot of cardboard created a fun arcade that has spawned a whole empire, including the Imagination Foundation, which is sponsoring a "Cardboard Challenge" this October 6th. The goal is to stimulate imagination and creativity.
Without realizing it, I'd begun my own Cardboard Challenge this fall. It came about as a confluence of two events: the excitement of the release of my children's picture book Nighttime Ninja, and the mundane activity of cleaning house. When I began cleaning, I was a bit depressed to find large stashes of cardboard: boxes, sheets, tubes, you name it, some of it dating back more than thirty years! Why was I saving this? I wondered. What good is it? Why save it any longer? (To be fair, we didn't have recycling thirty years ago.)
Suddenly, it dawned on me.
NINJA!
I stayed up until the wee hours for several nights, getting crafty, creating Nighttime Ninja puppets and more! All it took was a bit of paint, and imagination.
Who knows what will come in handy? That's what I keep telling myself, at least....maybe I'll build a cardboard castle, or a cardboard car, or a cardboard arcade....
Meanwhile, try out the Cardboard Challenge yourself!