Book Reviews: Casting a Wide Net (Part 1)

I finished 3 books this week. Sometimes I feel like a reading PacMan, gobbling up the yellow dots before the monsters get me. I have the stack of books that accumulated over the spring when I didn't have as much time for reading, and then I keep putting books on hold at the library as I find out about them. So QUIT recommending books to me, DARN IT! No, no ... I didn't really mean it. I LOVE reading. I LOVE talking about books. Here is number one (others to follow in separate posts.)

Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv. Billed by The Boston Globe as an "absolute must-read for parents" I have to say that I think that this book may be a must-read for anyone concerned about the state of the natural environment. This is a book about reconnecting children with the natural world -- certainly the job of parents and educators -- but it is also about accepting that kids experience the outdoors in decidedly different ways than adults do, and that has to be okay. You, the adult, might want to go quietly, binoculars in hand, down the pristine path looking for birds. Kids, on the other hand, want to run, climb, touch, poke, dig, build -- all those same things we did when we were kids. And those are the very experiences that kids are lacking these days. Consider this quote, from a fourth-grader in California: "I like to play indoors better 'cause that's where all the electrical outlets are."

There are a fair number of depressing statistics in the book, but overall its message is one of hope -- that this is a trend that has developed over the last generation, and can be reversed; that there is renewal for everyone when you get outside; that it's fun, for goodness sake! I bogged down a little in the last third of the book, because it's kind of repetitive, but I'm very glad that I read it, and it certainly inspires me to institute some changes in my teaching practice come September.

I finished the book on Sunday afternoon, and Enriched Geranium and I went to the University Arboretum for a walk. Our arboretum has a large formal garden area with hundreds of crabapple trees and lilac bushes. It's heavenly in May! On a Sunday in June, threatening rain, there weren't a lot of people there, but there were two little kids sitting up in a tree. I was so thrilled to see them, although I expected someone to come up and yell at them at any moment. They weren't experiencing nature the "right" way!

This is a good book, even to read parts of it. It has some good quotes in it too.