Remember how to make a spool tank? How to whip apples? What to do with a discarded umbrella? Whether "pennies" comes before or after "spank the baby" in mumbly-peg? And your kid never knew any of these things in the first place, to forget in the second place? Robert Paul Smith remembers, and he has set it down for all to see - these things and many others, like rubber-band guns, and slings, and clamshell bracelets, and the collection, care, and use of horse-chestnuts. This book frees children from video games for a few hours, a handbook on the avoidance of boredom, a primer on solitude - a child's declaration of independence. It reveals "how to do nothing with nobody all alone by yourself" - real things, fascinating things, the things that we and our parents did as kids. It's a book for kids, but parents are not prohibited from reading it.
