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A Child's Garden: 60 Ideas to Make Any Garden Come Alive for Children (Archetype Press Books) [Paperback]

Molly Dannenmaier
4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)

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Book Description

January 15, 2008 Archetype Press Books

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.


Frequently Bought Together

A Child's Garden: 60 Ideas to Make Any Garden Come Alive for Children (Archetype Press Books) + Roots, Shoots, Buckets & Boots: Gardening Together with Children + Toad Cottages and Shooting Stars: Grandma's Bag of Tricks
Price for all three: $39.94

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

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 --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

“By delving into ‘how children really play,’ the book shares stories of families who have transformed time in the garden into playtime, and features the blueprints, photos, and plants that made each garden successful."

(Flower )

“This beautiful and informal book asks the questions: How can the healthy development of children be served by a garden—the term garden here referring to any natural outdoor space set aside for recreation, not only a place for growing flowers and vegetables.”


(Renewal: A Journal for Waldorf Education )

"The book is packed with luscious photographs and simple techniques and structures you can use to nurture a child’s wild side.”

(Hobby Farm Home )

“Each topic includes ideas for creating such environments as treehouses and secret passages. Also offered is a list of resources that features landscape designers, organizations, places with public children's gardens, and garden books for both youngsters and adults.”


(Phoenix Home and Garden )

“It’s teaming with inspiration…”

Metro Parent Magazine (Metro Parent Magazine )

"Informed, useful. Splendid."

(Dallas Morning News )

"[Dannenmaier] presents 60 vibrant and inspired landscape plans and innovative weekend projects designed to help motivated parents create imaginary havens that will appeal to both young ones and those who are young at heart." Carol Haggas, Booklist (Booklist )

"[Dannenmaier believes that a garden made for children will engage adults too, because it will be full of secret hideaways and sensory delights."
House and Garden (House and Garden )

"Dannenmaier … reminds parents to plan both for open space and hiding places, leaving plenty of room for young imaginations to grow." (South Florida Sun-Sentinel )

"A Child's Garden provides inspiration for parents who'd like to make their yards more appealing to kids, or even landscape professionals interested in the history of children's gardens, the psychology of how children play and the features that encourage learning, make-believe and exercise."

(WestSound Home & Garden )

Product Details

  • Paperback: 180 pages
  • Publisher: Timber Press; Updated Pbk. Ed edition (January 15, 2008)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0881928437
  • ISBN-13: 978-0881928433
  • Product Dimensions: 8 x 0.6 x 10 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #186,810 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Fun book full of great ideas! Paula Whitaker Whisenant  |  3 reviewers made a similar statement
This book has wonderful photography and is full of ideas to engage children into the garden. plantmom  |  2 reviewers made a similar statement
For instance, not growing plants that are covered in thorns. SweetHappyLife-com  |  1 reviewer made a similar statement
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
50 of 50 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful book for parents and gardeners December 14, 1998
By A Customer
Format:Hardcover
This book is exactly what I was searching for. I love to garden, but I also need to accommodate my two rambunctious children and a variety of pets. This book has page after page of creative ideas, safety considerations, examples, and plenty of photos. The author is clear, interesting, and very informative about both gardening and childhood development.
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27 of 28 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Enchantingly possible! February 26, 2001
Format:Hardcover
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.

BTW, when I bought the book, my kids grabbed it from me immediately.... Read more ›

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26 of 27 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Hardcover
This beautifully illustrated book looks at gardens with the delight of a child from the perspective of a mother who loves her children and her community. Ms. Dannenmaier shows us how to get more out of the natural world, no matter our age or environment. She shows parents how to connect with their children in the garden, particularly urban spaces. This is a great gift book.
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars What a Wonderful and Enchanting book!! April 30, 2001
By A Customer
Format:Hardcover
Our whole family has enjoyed reading this book to get ideas for our Sunflower/Fairy Garden!! Every section offers wonderful ideas that we would never have thought of to add...What Fun our Magical Garden will be thanks to, A Child's Garden : Enchanting Outdoor Spaces for Children and Parents! One section offers the idea of planting different berries around the yard so the children can snack as they play! I have given this book to our landscaper to see what ideas he has for adding water to the garden...Already he has suggested using a water pump to circulate water in order to make a small trickling brook for our boys to sail their boats on! I also got the idea to make a willow archway that will be child size for the children to cimb through! We are so very excited to spend this summer creating and adding to our Enchanted Fairy Garden!
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars Pretty, not practical April 18, 2011
Format:Paperback
This books gives a history of children's gardens and a case for children to be surrounded by nature. It is filled with lovely, inspirational photos and text. However, the majority of the featured gardens and garden plans are more whimsical than practical. I didn't find a lot of really useful information on plants and gardening to help someone who wishes to create a garden space for their children. I much prefer Roots, Shoots, Buckets and Boots by Sharon Lovejoy.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful, intriguing, adaptable ideas May 11, 2008
Format:Paperback
I just received this as a gift today, and I loved looking through the beautiful photographs. So many interesting ideas for treehouses, mazes, theme gardens, and uses for those left-behind stumps and odd-shaped small yards-- it truly encourages people to plant where they're blooming, no matter how less-than-ideal the yard. It does seem to favor northern climates on the surface, but a Miami garden is highlighted, and the basics-- structures and uses of space are more of a focus, rather than specific plants or seasonal values. (This is important to me as a southern gardener-- we just don't have the same gardening calendar.)

Of course several of the featured gardens are owned by professional landscape designers or are part of large public gardens. But that shouldn't deter the novice with a vision; don't we all want to learn from the pros and use them as a springboard? If nothing else, I am inspired to continue creating a fun place for my children to play and roam, as well as consider ways to branch out into other local institutions that could provide these play spaces.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Wasn't what I thought it would be. Wanted more pictures of actual gardens and didn't get that. Otherwise was Ok
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Great book! Ideas, pictures and info are wonderful. August 10, 2009
Format:Paperback
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. There are alot of great ideas that you can incorporate into your yard or cool places to visit. Highly recommend.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
2.0 out of 5 stars Not Very Inspirational or Practical
I was looking forward to this book based upon all of the positive reviews, but unfortunately it was something of a disappointment. Read more
Published 2 months ago by SweetHappyLife-com
4.0 out of 5 stars Great garden resource!
If you have children, this is a wonderful book to have. My son, who is three, has enjoyed looking through this book as much as I have. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Paula Whitaker Whisenant
5.0 out of 5 stars children's garden
I ordered this book to get ideas for a children's play area for my grand kids and it is a great book as I have gotten many ideas for my garden play area.
Published 12 months ago by connie beatty
5.0 out of 5 stars Very Helpful
This book has wonderful photography and is full of ideas to engage children into the garden. The information is presented in a clear and easy to understand way.
Published 23 months ago by plantmom
2.0 out of 5 stars A child's garden
Not my idea of what a child might ask for in a garden area! Picturesque but not very exciting
Published on February 8, 2010 by M. Mackridge
5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent book on garden design
This is the book I'd been looking for! I first found it at the library. When I saw how well done it was and with all the color photographs, I had to order a copy for my garden... Read more
Published on June 3, 2009 by Carol Gentry
5.0 out of 5 stars Wow-such inspiration for schools, homes, and playgrounds
I first discovered this gem about 10 years ago in a little independent bookstore in Blue Hill, Maine and I've recommended it to many friends and schools. Read more
Published on August 19, 2008 by Pamela Bailey
2.0 out of 5 stars don't choose norway maple
I have not read this book, but was disturbed to read, in the description of the book, the suggestion to plant norway maple as a climbing tree for your child. Read more
Published on January 12, 2007 by lindsay urquhart
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