Let's Play:
  Traditional Games of Childhood
   Dusan Petricic
   Illustrator -- Camilla Gryski
  1998 Kids Can Press Ltd, Buffalo NY
    ISBN: 1550744976

Children have been playing games for thousands of years. Some of the details have changed, although their basic patterns remain the same. We still love to jump & hop, throw & catch, chase & hide!

Many of our toys we find in nature. We play with twigs & leaves, pebbles or stones, small bones, nuts & shells. Other toys we borrowed from our homes -- buttons, rings, thimbles & things.

Most of the games in this book are hundreds of years old, some even going back before ancient Roman, Egyptian & Greek times; some are specific to a culture & modernized with each generation of children teaching children teaching children.

In each culture's language, we learn to count as we choose the “It” of our games; in each people's climate we learn how to play tag with our shadows, footprints & dirt. No matter whether it's a street, city park, playlot, bombed site or field, children, in their mother tongues, have shrilled out “Freeze!”

& that age-old game whose origins are steeped in the history of our parents' wars, Hide-and-Seek spontaneously erupts whenever more than two children are gathered.

While thimbles are relatively new in our story, hunting for something in the clutter of our homes, right under our noses, has ever been a lesson in looking & seeing.

Then the physical games of Leapfrog, Hopscotch, Jumping Rope & Balls, all teach coordination, sportsmanship, ingenuity & concentration & are fun, besides! Hopscotch & Jumping Rope were my two favorites.

Clapping Games -- teaching us coordination & remembering, Hand Games, Hand Shadows -- things to do while traveling, waiting or when we can't yet fall asleep.

The Telephone Game is older than that instrument -- a whispered phrase or word is passed from child to child until at the last listener -- surprise! This was a favorite party game when the last listener had to figure out what was first said & the team who got the closest won a prize.

Then my favorite at which I excelled -- especially when I could no longer run & hop, leap & climb -- Jackstones. Down through the childhood of our species, children have tossed & scooped, picked & popped pebbles, knucklebones & then, when our fathers' industries produced those mysterious metal stars & high bouncing balls in their own little pouch -- we'd scrape them across our stone or wood floors inventing all sorts of degrees of difficulty. Counting, counting, counting.

Marbles -- of course have been with us ever since our uncles chipped away at rocks for all those columns we see lying about in ancient places.

All the games of my pre-television childhood are here. They all taught me, by repetition & example, how to count, how to listen & how to see. How to coordinate my legs & arms & how to be quiet under duress as well as how to be loud when necessary.

Games, which have kept our young minds flexible & alert, have taken a sad second to what I call artificial games over which the player has little or no control or influence. Perhaps one of the sorriest sights I've ever seen was a cluster of carals where children were solitarily playing the same game on individual computer monitors while outside the world was silent, no children running & jumping & learning to play as a pack, as neighbors, as friends.

When I look at school playgrounds I see remnants of some of these games, however, in this Politically Correct Era, some are now forbidden for all the wrong reasons.

This is a good book to keep in your family for when everyone is burnt out from their sedentary existence or for when relatives arrive & the ice needs breaking. It is also a good book because it reminds us of how inventive we can be when left to our own devices -- which modern children are not encouraged nearly enough.

Just for the fun of the information: Let's Play was printed in Gill Sans text & printed in Hong Kong by the Wing King Tong Company Limited.

None of my computer programs listed the accents with which Yugoslav-born Dusan Petricic's name is properly written & for that I intend no respect. Dusan's illustrations frequently appear in magazines & newspapers, including The New York Times & Scientific American. Before emigrating to Canada, Dusan Petricic was a professor at the Belgrade Academy for Applied Arts & his books have won numerous European awards. He illustrated: Bone Button Borscht.

Camilla Gryski is the bestselling author of many children's books including: Cat's Cradle, Owl's Eyes; Many Stars and More String Games; Super String Game & Friendship Bracelets. A former teacher & librarian, Camilla Gryski is now a therapeutic clown at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada.
(08/26/01)

Rebecca