Wild Child: Coming home to Nature

From climbing trees and making dams to building sandcastles and pond-dipping, many of the activities we associate with a happy childhood take place outdoors and yet, the reality for many contemporary children is very different. The studies tell us that we are raising a generation of children alienated from nature.  Many can’t identify the most common birds or plants and don’t know where their food comes from.  They are shuttled from home to school and to the shops and spend very little time in green spaces – let alone roaming free.

In this timely and personal book, celebrated nature writer Patrick Barkham draws on his own experience as a parent and a forest school volunteer to explore the relationship between children and nature.  Unfolding over the course of a year of snowsuits, muddy wellies and sunhats, Wild Child is both an intimate story of children finding their place in the natural world and a celebration of the delight we can all find in even modest patches of green.