Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder

A book tho change minds and lives.

Camping in the garden, riding bikes through the woods, climbing trees, collecting bugs and butterflies, picking wildflowers, running through piles of autumn leaves, cooking over a campfire and telling ghost stories under the stars . . . somewhere the pleasures of a free-range childhood have been lost. And with the indoor habits of today's children come other problems – epidemic obesity, attention-deficit disorder, isolation and childhood depression.

This urgent book, which has inspired the influential international movement Leave No Child Inside, has not only highlighted the problem and provoked debate; it also offers practical advice on how to help children to enjoy the natural world – starting in our parks and gardens, homes and schools. This is a clarion call, brilliantly written, compelling and irresistibly persuasive – a book that will change minds and lives.

'A single sentence explains why Louv's book is so important: 'our children', he writes, 'are the first generation to be raised without meaningful contact with the natural world.' This matters, and Last Child in the Woods makes it patently clear why, and lays out a path back.' Ecologist