Until recently, children played outdoors with carefree abandon after school and in the summer. Today, however, children are more likely to spend their free time indoors, watching television, playing video games, or using a computer. But children thrive in the natural world. They love to play in water and with creepy critters. They savor hideaways, can not get enough dirt and sand, and relish climbing to great hieghts. They need movement. They want to pretend and to nurture other growing things. And most of all, they learn from everything that is new and stimulating.

Addressing these basic needs, A Child's Garden offers a wide range of innovative examples showing how to create special places in which children can experience nature on their own home turf. Here are child-friendly ponds, places for pets, and private refuges. Out-of-the-ordinary sandboxes are pictured, along with paths, mazes, furniture, peepholes, and scores of ideas for creative play areas that fit perfectly into adult gardens.

Featured throughout this profusely illustrated book are miniature paradises that parents and grandparents have designed just for the children in their lives, highlighting an enchanting variety of elements that will make any garden come alive for children.

A Child's Garden is an excellent guide for parents wishing to create natural spaces in the garden where their children can openly play and explore. Stepping beyond the traditional ideas of building a treehouse or planting a vegetable garden, the authors include 60 unique ways to tailor a landscape to nurture a child's sense of enchantment and wonder. For instance, many children like to hide, and the book includes ideas for building natural caves out of woven willow branches, climbing vines, or weeping shrubs. For parents wanting to plant a good tree for climbing, this guide knowledgeably recommends the fast-growing and sturdy Norway maple as one of the best. It's filled with such information throughout its nine sections on water, creatures, refuges, dirt, heights, movement, make-believe, nurturing, and learning. Messages on safety are wisely included, along with an excellent list of resources covering everything from buying butterfly houses to visiting selected children's gardens. Through its many color photographs and warm, wise text, A Child's Garden will draw parents into their children's timeless, carefree world and perhaps back to a time when they themselves explored streams, played in the sand, studied bugs, and roamed without agenda. --Karen Karleski