These questions were so confusing to Ahmad that he started flipping through his mother’s books and father’s files in order to figure out where their ideas stemmed from. But nothing came up in his head…

He headed to the garden, and imitating his uncle, he contemplated the sky and tried to listen to the birds tweeting and singing. He even climbed up the tree so that he be the first to catch the idea when it fell down. Again, no ideas popped through.

He took off his clothes, took a plunge into fresh water and swam in all directions. Suddenly, the thought came into his head.

Taking the advice of his teacher, Ahmad decided to sketch down his idea and break it down into smaller parts, outlining its pros and cons and gathering information from others and from sources such as books and the internet to come up with new suggestions aimed at refining his idea.

How to Catch an Idea, written by Fatima Hamad Mazroui and illustrated by Mona Yaqzan and Mira El-Mir, was published in its first edition in 2013, with the aim of teaching children ho how to gather information in order to come up with a valuable idea.