Playful: How Play Shifts Our Thinking, Inspires Connection, and Sparks Creativity by Cas Holman

If you’re looking to reconnect with your inner child, or perhaps just add a bit more joy—or as the cool kids call it these days, whimsy—to your life, Cas Holman’s Playful is the perfect next read. Playful: How Play Shifts Our Thinking, Inspires Connection, and Sparks Creativity is a wonderful book from Holman, an accomplished educator, inventor, designer, and play expert, and science writer Lydia Denworth. Holman explains what play really means, breaking through the notion that it is reserved for children and offering ways to incorporate it into your adult life.

Holman dives into the concept of “free play,” exploring what that might look like in childhood: imaginary play or making up games with sticks and rocks and whatever else might be in your backyard, and how it shines through differently in adulthood, if only you let it. You might think to yourself that you don’t have any interest in pretending you’re on an expedition to discover new species (turning rocks and logs over in your backyard to see what kinds of worms and beetles are waiting), but Cas has an answer for you there, too. In fact, many answers. Cas breaks down what play, especially free play, can look like in adulthood. You’d be surprised—you might even be playing more than you think.

One of the most memorable parts of the book for me was Cas's breakdown of the different types of play for adults. Meditative play can include activities like yoga, knitting, puzzles, or even assembling IKEA furniture. Creative play shows up in everyday moments like decorating your home, dancing in the kitchen, or singing in the car. Possibility play can look like making a vision board on Pinterest or saving different Airbnb listings for a dream trip. Play isn't just throwing a ball around or moving pieces on a board game (although both of those things are very fun!). The point is that play is everywhere, and once you begin to recognize it, life can feel a lot more playful.

There are many benefits of incorporating and recognizing play in adulthood, and Cas outlines a few of them in the title of the book. Play helps to overcome fear of failure and embrace new ways of thinking—approaching something with a playful perspective, letting go of how a “serious” person would do something can help bring new ideas to the table. It can help spark creativity and joy, and most importantly, I think, it can bring people together.

Moreover, it isn’t just helpful. Cas argues that it’s indeed crucial for a happy and healthy life. And everything you need to know about why and how to achieve this playfully happy and healthy life is right inside this book!

Cas Holman is an accomplished educator, designer, inventor, and author. She studied Fine Arts at University of California, Santa Cruz and honed her skills again at Cranbrook Academy of Art, where she earned her Master of Fine Art. Since then, she’s invented Geemo, which launched at the Museum of Modern Art in 2007, and Rigamajig, which has been incorporated into playgrounds and classrooms all over the world. She’s held professorships at Rhode Island School of Design and Syracuse University, and she’s designed the High Line Children’s Workyard Kit in collaboration with Friends of the High Line Park. You can learn more about Cas and her work on her website, or tune in to her episode of Netflix’s series Abstract: The Art of Design.