the wonder-room, april 2025

Dear fellow wonderer,

Welcome to April’s cabinet of curiosities.¹ This month we’ve been pushing back against the notion that kids are all screen-affixed zombies and talking instead about cool stuff they’re doing away from screens.

And on that theme, some links!

• I will forever be pointing you toward the work of Lenore Skenazy, author of the classic handbook Free-Range Kids, and her organization Let Grow, which promotes childhood independence. The Let Grow Experience challenges kids to come up with something they want to do entirely on their own–and to do it! How I love this video of kids doing their stuff.
• If you or someone you know has babies or toddlers, this newsletter from Danielle at Ordinary Animals on not giving them a smartphone is fantastic–and a great way to help them become kids who play and do. Rather than shaming, the article offers solid reasoning, plus alternatives. For instance: just add water!

• I’ve been thinking of all the stuff I did as a kid, both on my own and with friends. Often, ideas came from books–the flying lady show and playing Mirror Palace came from Betsy-Tacy books, my faves, and I learned from others, like The Reader’s Digest Book of Things to Make and Do, how to make Swedish pancakes and slam-books and fruit leather and game spinners and…

• Another big inspiration was the classic ’70s PBS show ZOOM. This Rebecca Onion piece in Slate lays out why it was so unique for its time. A show that encouraged independence and fun for kids, it really did seem to be run by kids, though it was obviously produced by adults. (Fun fact: as a kid, author and 2025 Guggenheim fellow Jonathan Lethem got his start when his submitted story made it on the show.) ZOOM was low-key and the projects were simple and do-able–check out this online exhibit of artifacts–and my friends and I tubotubally lubearned tubo spubeak Ubbi Dubbi and sent in our SASEs for ZOOM project cards. Inspired by the show, my best friend Tracy and I had a “yogurt party,” including a mysterious tape-recorded invitation that we played when our friends answered the phone, but we got in big trouble with her mom for having the party without parental permission after we shrinky-dinked yogurt lids in the oven with no adults present. Oh, that smell of melting plastic…
• Because I can never write a post about kid independence without linking something from play researcher Peter Gray, here’s a good one about what kids learn from other kids when adults aren’t around.
• My kids didn’t have ZOOM, but they had Klutz books, Klutz books on Klutz books. Here are some of the most popular ones from the ’90s, of which we seemingly owned most, the clay one consulted often most often. Previously mentioned best friend Tracy still has a little glass in her family room full of colorful clay marbles my kids made one Christmas. Although my third kid, the Gen Z kid, was not into making things, but loved making ideas, and was really into what he called “nifty facts,” of which there are five intriguing ones about Klutz books at the end of that post.

• Looking for photos of kids’ forts, I was dismayed to see mostly links for kits and plans for helping kids make forts. KIDS DON’T NEED HELP MAKING FORTS! JUST LET KIDS MAKE FORTS! I had to scroll way down to find this interview with David Sobel, an authority on kids’ fort-making. It lays out why fort-building is so important, and how we can support kids in their efforts—while letting them build on their own. And yes, it includes photos of actual kid-built forts.

I’d still really love to hear what the kids in your life are doing, aside from screens. Or creatively on screens! Or share links of other busy kids you’ve come across! In the comments here, or on the original post.

Treasure of the month: Remember how last month I mentioned “Story Time” for Caregivers, a reading series for caregivers with babes-in-arms–with books aimed not at the babies but the caregivers–offered by writer Nicole Haroutunian in Queens, and how I longed to bring such a series to the Bay Area? I’m working on getting this underway and I have the most perfect bookstore willing to help if I can get a lineup in place! If you’re a writer—or know a writer—with a book with a caregiving theme or thread who might want to share that book with an audience of caregivers and babies, reach out! The book doesn’t have to be a current release. I’m especially interested in finding local writers to plump up a monthly schedule, but if you’re not local and will be coming through on a book tour or otherwise, please let me know. Let’s make this happen!

Truly,
Patricia

Cross-posted on Substack.