Imagination Applied Press

The Forgotten Playbook Library

Overlooked public-domain ideas, rebuilt for modern families, educators, facilitators and communities.

Rescue what still works. Retire what does not. Make the useful part easy to act on.

Who it is for. Anyone running a room: parents, teachers, librarians, camp and group leaders.

Publishing shortly. These titles are finished and through production. Purchase links appear here as each one goes on sale.
  1. Volume 1

    The Screen-Free Group Games Handbook

    60 Cooperative Activities for Classrooms, Camps, Meetings, and Youth Groups

    Choose this when a group needs connection, coordination, listening, movement, reflection, or closure—and you want activities that do not rely on public elimination or forced disclosure.

    112 pages · paperback and Kindle

  2. Volume 2

    How to Collect Family Stories

    An Oral-History Field Guide for Recording, Preserving, and Sharing What Matters

    Choose this when someone knows something you will never be able to Google—and you want to record it with consent, context, and a preservation plan.

    88 pages · paperback and Kindle

  3. Volume 3

    The Vintage Maker Book

    30 Old-School Crafts, Toys, Celebrations, and Adventures Rebuilt for Modern Kids

    Choose this when children or groups need a screen-light project they can make, test, revise, and understand—not merely copy.

    112 pages · paperback and Kindle

  4. Volume 4

    The Boredom Rescue Book

    100 Screen-Free Things Kids Can Actually Do

    Choose this when a child, family, classroom, library, camp, or after-school group needs a screen-free beginning matched to time, supplies, energy, independence, noise, company, or the kind of bored they are actually experiencing.

    154 pages · paperback and Kindle

  5. Volume 5

    Cardboard Engineering for Kids

    24 Builds From Shipping Boxes

    Choose this when ordinary shipping boxes should become testable structures, mechanisms, games, and useful objects—and you want makers to plan, test, observe, and revise.

    77 pages · paperback and Kindle

  6. Volume 6

    Raising a Lifelong Reader

    36 Practical Invitations That Help Children Choose Books

    Choose this when a child needs books, formats, places, and shared routines that feel possible to return to—and you want interest kept separate from skill, with explicit instruction still in view.

    110 pages · paperback and Kindle

The philosophy

Artistic Intelligence

What we use when the answer is not waiting to be found. Josh's forthcoming book.

The practice

TheaterThink

The rehearsal-based method. How we work.

The company

Imagination Applied

Where the work becomes engagements and change. You are here.

The voice

Josh Penzell

Keynotes, speaking, and the book live atjoshpenzell.com.