ABSTRACT
During the late Depression era and World War II, my childhood was fi lled with play and work in the hills and valley farms of Arkansas. During three summers, I worked and played alternately in a large Texas city, a remote share-cropper’s farm in the Dust Bowl of West Texas, and in the California migrant stream. In all these places, we worked alongside adults but quickly discovered and established grounds for play and set about reveling in the many forms of play that only children seem to understand. Contrary to common contemporary thought, grounds for play or “playgrounds” are not just the commercial venues created by adults, but have also always been wherever the special places in the woods of the countryside and the vacant spaces of villages and cities can take children on magical fl ights of fantasy. Th is book is about all the grounds for play that children seek out and enjoy, the play they create, the benefi ts of their play, and the consequences of not playing. Further, it spans the centuries to illustrate how and where children play and the factors that infl uenced their play, and it seeks clues for resolving problems emerging from the disappearance of play in outdoor environments.
