Review of Unplugged Play: No Batteries. No Plugs. Pure Fun. (Paperback)

Playfulness is the name of the game in childhood. Unfortunately, in their workaday world, many parents forget that all work and no play makes Little Johnny a bored, lethargic boy. Thanks to Bobbi Conner, Little Johnny just got 710 reasons to get up off the couch and join his hopscotching playmates outdoors.

Veteran radio show host on NPR, Bobbi Conner is concerned about today's kids and their lack of creative outlets. Instead of being busy with electronic entertainment such as video games and push-button toys, she suggests myriad avenues to get down to the business of play in fun, very simple ways. Unlike many guide books that read more like a Martha Stewart manual (and must be secretly backed by major craft store chains), Bobbi's approach is simple - take what you have at home and let `er rip.

The book is divided into three useful sections - toddler play; preschooler play; and grade school play. It was gratifying to see many of the games we've thought up on our own are in the book. Necessity is the mother of invention. This book is the mother of children's creativity.

Bobbi's tone is real-life and compassionate, not patronizing or oozing with `expertise'. She was once a time-strapped single mom raising her kids with nothing more than her ingenuity to keep them occupied. When we think back to our own childhoods or that of our children, the best times were those spent together around a Parchese board or telling stories to one another. But if you think you have to spend hours with your children to right the wrongs of those hundreds of TV hours your kid has logged, you're wrong. Bobbi recognizes the reality in today's world. She recommends ways in which children can learn independent play by sparking their creative thoughts and having them vary the activities themselves. You needn't micromanage their play. In fact, Bobbi warns against it.

This book came in the nick of time as my son recently had a playdate with a boy who is very `plugged' into video games and TV. Concerned we wouldn't make the three hours without hiscrying for TV, I grabbed the book and discovered some cool, easy ways to interest the boys in a new game of toss the button in the bucket. My son's friend only asked to watch TV once, but after I showed him the book and all its possibilities, he never asked again!

I highly recommend Unplugged Play for its usefulness, inventiveness, and fun. It may even remind you that all work and no play makes Little Johnny's mommy and daddy very dull girls and boys, too!

~Christine Louise Hohlbaum, author of Diary of a Mother: Parenting Stories and Other Stuff and Sahm I Am: Tales of a Stay-at-Home Mom in Europe, is a freelance writer living near Munich, Germany, with her husband and two extremely playful children.




Click Here to see more reviews about: Unplugged Play: No Batteries. No Plugs. Pure Fun. (Paperback)