—Martha Farrell Erickson, Ph.D., co-chair of the
Presidential Initiative on Children and founding director
of the Children, Youth, and Family Consortium,
University of Minnesota
LAST CHILD IN THE WOODS
ALSO BY RICHARD LOUV
Fly-Fishing for Sharks: An American Journey
The Web of Life
FatherLove
101 Things You Can Do for Our Children’s Future
Childhood’s Future
America II
LAST CHILD IN THE WOODS
Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder
Updated and Expanded
RICHARD LOUV
Published by
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Post Office Box 2225
Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27515-2225
a division of
Workman Publishing
225 Varick Street
New York, New York 10014
© 2005, 2008 by Richard Louv. All rights reserved.
Revised and updated edition, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, March 2008.
First edition published by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill in 2005.
Printed in the United States of America.
Published simultaneously in Canada by Thomas Allen & Son Limited.
Design by Anne Winslow.
The author is grateful to reprint with permission of their authors or publishers excerpts from the following: “New Mexico,” from Phoenix: The Posthumous Papers of D. H. Lawrence, edited by Edward McDonald, copyright 1936 by Frieda Lawrence, copyright renewed 1964 by the estate of the late Frieda Lawrence Ravagli, used by permission of Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. “Kiss Nature Goodbye,” by John Beardsley. “The Need for Nature: A Childhood Right,” by Robin Moore. “Ecstatic Places,” by Louise Chawla. “Views of Nature and Self-Discipline: Evidence from Inner City Children” and “Coping with ADD: The Surprising Connection to Green Play Settings,” by Andrea Faber Taylor, Frances E. Kuo, and William C. Sullivan. The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, by Edmund C. Morris, copyright Putnam, 1979. The author has made every attempt to obtain permission for additional quoted material.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Louv, Richard.
Last child in the woods : saving our children from nature-deficit disorder /
Richard Louv.—Updated and Expanded
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-1-56512-605-3
1. Nature—Psychological aspects. 2. Children and the environment. I. Title.
BF353.5.N37L68 2008
155.4′18—dc22 2007049665
Last Child in the Woods is available at special discounts when purchased in bulk
for premiums and sales promotions as well as for fund-raising or educational use.
Special editions or book excerpts also can be created to specification.
For details, contact the Special Sales Director at the address below.
Workman Publishing Company, Inc.
225 Varick Street
New York, New York 10014
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Jason and Matthew
There was a child went forth every day
And the first object he look’d upon, that object he became,
And that object became part of him for the day or a certain part of the day,
Or for many years or stretching cycles of years.
The early lilacs became part of this child,
And grass and white and red morning glories, and white and red clover,
and the song of the phoebe-bird,
And the Third-month lambs and the sow’s pink-faint litter,
and the mare’s foal and the cow’s calf . . .
—WALT WHITMAN
I like to play indoors better ’cause that’s where all the
electrical outlets are.
—A FOURTH-GRADER IN SAN DIEGO
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INTRODUCTION
PART I : THE NEW RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CHILDREN AND NATURE
1. Gifts of Nature
2. The Third Frontier
3. The Criminalization of Natural Play
PART II: WHY THE YOUNG (AND THE REST OF US) NEED NATURE
4. Climbing the Tree of Health
5. A Life of the Senses: Nature vs. the Know-It-All State of Mind
6. The “Eighth Intelligence”
7. The Genius of Childhood: How Nature Nurtures Creativity
8. Nature-Deficit Disorder and the Restorative Environment
PART III: THE BEST OF INTENTIONS: WHY JOHNNIE AND JEANNIE DON’T PLAY OUTSIDE ANYMORE
9. Time and Fear
10. The Bogeyman Syndrome Redux
11. Don’t Know Much About Natural History: Education as a Barrier to Nature
12. Where Will Future Stewards of Nature Come From?
PART IV: THE NATURE-CHILD REUNION
13. Bringing Nature Home
14. Scared Smart: Facing the Bogeyman
15. Telling Turtle Tales: Using Nature as a Moral Teacher
PART V: THE JUNGLE BLACKBOARD
16. Natural School Reform
17. Camp Revival
PART VI: WONDER LAND: OPENING THE FOURTH FRONTIER
18. The Education of Judge Thatcher: Decriminalizing Natural Play
19. Cities Gone Wild
20. Where the Wild Things Will Be: A New Back-to-the-Land Movement
PART VII: TO BE AMAZED
21. The Spiritual Necessity of Nature for the Young
22. Fire and Fermentation: Building a Movement
23. While It Lasts
NOTES
SUGGESTED READING
INDEX
A FIELD GUIDE TO LAST CHILD IN THE WOODS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THIS BOOK, LIKE MOST, was a collective effort. My wife, Kathy Frederick Louv, and sons, Jason and Matthew, provided logistical, emotional, and intellectual support; they lived the research, too.
Publisher Elisabeth Scharlatt and literary agent James Levine made the book possible. Elisabeth’s gentle, clear-eyed perspective offered depth for roots and careful pruning of overgrowth. She is a joy to work with. Algonquin’s Amy Gash also offered wise and timely support, as did Craig Popelars, Ina Stern, Brunson Hoole, Michael Taeckens, Aimee Bollenbach, Katherine Ward, and the rest of the Algonquin team. Heavy editorial lifting was shared by my talented friend and virtual brother, Dean Stahl. Invaluable editorial support came from John Shore, Lisa Polikov, and Cheryl Nicchitta, and my editors at the San Diego Union-Tribune, including Bill Osborne, Bernie Jones, Lora Cicalo, Jane Clifford, Karin Winner, and Peter Kaye. For providing timely reality checks: John Johns, David Boe, Larry Hinman, Karen Kerchelich, Rosemary Erickson, R. Larry Schmitt, Melissa Baldwin, Jackie Green, Jon Funabiki, Bill Stothers, Michael Stepner, Susan Bales, Michael Goldstein, Susan White, Bob Laurence, Jeannette De Wyze, Gary Shiebler, Anne Pearse Hocker, Peter Sebring, Janet Fout, Neal Peirce, LaVonne Misner, Melissa Moriarty, and, especially by example, Michael Louv.
While an author traditionally does not thank people quoted in his or her book, accuracy and respect require special thanks to two groups: the teachers, especially John Rick, Brady Kelso, Tina Kafka, David Ward, and Candy Vanderhoff, who encouraged their students to share their thoughts; the students themselves (some of their names have been changed herein); and the hardy band of researchers who have plowed this field in recent years. I
