" The postwar American stereotypes of suburban sameness, traditional gender roles, and educational conservatism have masked an alternate self-image tailor-made for the Cold War. The creative child, an idealized future citizen, was the darling of baby boom parents, psychologists, marketers, and designers who saw in the next generation promise that appeared to answer the most pressing worries of the age. Designing the Creative Child reveals how a postwar...

Will, a creative soul struggling to come to terms with a family tragedy, crafts whimsical lamps, in part to deal with her fear of the dark, which she is forced to confront when a hurricane blows through her town at the end of a summer.