A Childs Garden: Enchanting Outdoor Spaces for Children and Parents.

New York, NY Simon & Schuster: Archetype Press, 1998. Hardcover First Ed; First Printing indicated. First Ed; First Printing indicated. Fine in Fine DJ: Book shows binding square and secure; text clean. DJ unclipped; mylar-protected. As New. NOT a Remainder, Book-Club, or Ex-Library. 4to. 191pp. Profusely Illustrated with Photographs in Color. Hardback with DJ. Every page of this book has full color photos from some of the most incredible gardens for children I have ever seen, from the large elaborate planned spaces of botanical gardens, to small modest spaces that will fit any space or budget. While this is not a heavy-duty "how to" book, it is a book of ideas--and we all know that ideas lead to other ideas! The cover of this book alone is inspiring! The author asks, "How important are the old childhood pleasures of collecting seed pods, fishing in ditches, making bowers, picking flowers, and climbing trees?...long hours of unstructured outdoor exploration are a fast-vanishing aspect of contemporary childhood." She continues, "...the environment [on her uncle's farm] was so complex--full of smells, varied land forms, and mesmerizing creatures. I remember a scooped out pond surrounded by mud in which pigs, geese and ducks joyously wallowed. The strange pungency of the air, the frighteningly gigantic hogs, the mysterious, billowy grasses...still fill my senses." The author talks at great length about the psychology of nature, and of German educational reforms of the early 20th century (but only the good ones <G>). Each page has a line fron a Robert Louis Stevenson poem, for "...you may see, if you will look Through the windows of this book, Another child far away, And in another garden play." The book includes suggestions for water gardens, sensory gardens, vegetable gardens, themed gardens, natural sand boxes, mazes, and attracting wildlife, plus many resources for strange seeds, odd plants, and landscape designers in varied areas of the US and the UK, all geared towards making a child's space a natural one.